Such measures are important, and can help queer Facebook employees and users of the platform to feel included and seen. One feature, a rainbow "reaction" ("like") button, allows users to express their pride, or solidarity, in response to posts. But as Sarah Kessler pointed out at Quartz, that feature was only rolled out to users in certain markets...namely, "major markets with Pride celebrations." Other users are able to opt in to the feature by liking Facebook's official LGBTQ@Facebook page. [...]
After sending out some messages to friends in other places, I discovered that the feature was unavailable in a number of countries, including Egypt, Palestine, Bahrain, Lebanon, Singapore, Russia, and the UAE. While Facebook admits—in both its press release and in response to a question posed by a Singaporean user on its official LGBTQ page—that the feature isn't available everywhere yet, my testing demonstrated that it's widely available throughout the world...except in places where homosexuality is either illegal or of questionable legal status.
Facebook hasn't said why the feature is restricted to those particular countries, but the company is likely worried about putting users at risk. That's a fair concern, to be sure—gay and bi men are being rounded up and killed in Chechnya, for example—but it's worth noting that Facebook's "authentic name" policy is part of why such users are at risk to begin with. Despite protests from queer users for nearly a decade, Facebook has continued to reaffirm the value of the policy in promoting "civility," despite evidence to the contrary. [...]
"Facebook policies have [contained] a lot of discrimination in so many aspects," Aoun told me. "It's the same when a certain terrorist attack happens in Lebanon, we don't have the safety check. Unfortunately, the world nowadays is built on the priorities of … people who are living in Western countries, especially white people who are living in those countries."
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