Yahoo! Teams with GLAAD to Remove Anti-LGBT Comments from Adam Lambert Interview

Yahoo! removed incendiary anti-gay comments posted on the site’s Y! Music ‘Reality Rocks’ blog and pledged to continue monitoring anti-LGBT comments on all of its platforms, media advocacy and anti-defamation organization GLAAD announced today. The internet hub acted “immediately” to remove hateful and violent comments posted in response to an interview with openly gay recording artist Adam Lambert.

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Allison Palmer, GLAAD's Director of Digital Initiatives, issued a statement earlier today commending Yahoo! for addressing the issue quickly and highlighting its continued pledge to address anti-LGBT comments across all of its platforms. "Young music fans should be able to interact and comment on sites without seeing violent, hateful comments directed at LGBT people," Palmer said. "Yahoo! did the right thing by taking immediate action to enforce their Terms of Service, setting an important example for other leading websites and tech companies."

Yahoo! readers contacted GLAAD after seeing comments on the Lambert interview that violated Yahoo’s Terms of Service. Some of the comments advocated violence, referencing past anti-gay incidents such as the assault of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. "It would make my day if someone was to do to [Lambert] what those men did to Matthew Shepard,” one comment said.

Yahoo! reiterated its terms of service as it removed the comments and disabled commenting on the article, explaining that the company "does not allow content that promotes hatred against users or groups of users. Protected categories include, but are not limited to race, ethnicity, age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Yahoo! takes issues like this very seriously. We provide methods for users to report content that they believe to be abusive.  Yahoo! reviews these reports and takes appropriate action according to our Terms of Service."