West Hollywood, Calif., July 14, 2022 — GLAAD’s second annual Social Media Safety Index (SMSI) reports that 84% of LGBTQ adults feel mainstream social platforms aren’t doing enough to keep them safe. Yesterday’s newly released report emphasizes exactly why SPACES, a queer tech platform aiming to create a safe and authentic experience for all segments of the LGBTQ+ community through group-chat, is so desperately needed. The report also refers to Hornet, creators of SPACES, as one of the “organizations and entities … providing leadership in policy development,” specifically referring to the Hornet Safety Pledge, a tech-industry first that was published on June 1.
The 2022 SMSI gives “failing grades” to all five evaluated social platforms — Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok — each of which scores under 50 out of a possible 100 on GLAAD’s Platform Scorecard. Additionally, a newly released 2022 report finds that 66% of LGBTQ people have experienced harassment online, up 2% from the previous year’s findings.
SPACES is itself a response to what GLAAD calls out as heteronormative social media platforms and companies prioritizing profit over LGBTQ safety and lives. Among the 10 points of the app’s Safety Pledge are guarantees to combat hate, harassment and abusive behavior; to keep users’ physical safety, health and well-being as a top priority; and to only rely on technology that does not exploit or unfairly treat LGBTQ people and other vulnerable communities. This type of proactive pledge to keep the queer community safe is an important advancement as heteronormative platforms continue to abdicate their duty to protect queer people, as the SMSI impressively documents.
“We love to see GLAAD’s continued work around LGBTQ+ safety online, and appreciate that GLAAD considers our Safety Pledge to be an important step forward in social media policy development,” says Christof Wittig, Hornet Networks CEO and co-founder. “And we are proud to see that all of the recommendations GLAAD is making to the largest social media platforms are currently policies and features of SPACES, the first app dedicated to all queer people connecting over shared interests.”
On June 26, 2022, SPACES was proud to announce that it had been featured as ‘App of the Day’ by the App Store. An accomplishment for any app, SPACES was especially proud to be featured on Pride Sunday, a day commemorating the anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.
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ABOUT SPACES
Spaces is a group chat platform for building queer communities, and the first app to serve the entirety of the LGBTQ+ spectrum. It’s a place for all queer people to connect over their favorite topics and interests, plan meetups and hang out. It’s where we can easily discover and join the specific communities — worldwide fandoms, local teams and organizations, close friends — that matter to us most, some public and others invite-only, all on a platform where we can safely be our true, authentic selves.
More information at spaces.hornet.com
ABOUT HORNET NETWORKS
Hornet Networks is the world’s leading queer tech company, providing a digital home for LGBTQ+ people to safely connect with each other — anytime, anywhere. Amplifying the radical, affirmative power of the queer community with cutting-edge technology, Hornet serves an LGBTQ+ audience with two distinct apps: the queer social network Hornet, with over 35 million users worldwide, and the recently launched Spaces, a group-chat platform for queer communities to connect over shared interests.
More information at hornet.com
