Instagram and Facebook blocked and hid posts from abortion pill providers

Instagram and Facebook recently blurred, blocked or removed posts from two abortion pill providers. Instagram also suspended the accounts of several abortion pill providers and hid the providers from appearing in search and recommendations.
The actions occurred over the past two weeks, and were particularly noticeable in the past two days, abortion pill providers said. Content from their accounts – or in some cases, their entire accounts – were no longer visible on Instagram.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, confirmed the suspension of some accounts and the blurring of posts. The company restored some accounts and posts on Thursday after The New York Times asked about its actions.
Meta has come under scrutiny since its CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced changes to the company’s speech policies earlier this month. Mr. Zuckerberg vowed to loosen restrictions on online speech, raising concerns among misinformation researchers and others that the shifts could lead to a spike in hate speech and have other harmful effects.
Meta said that the moderation of abortion-focused accounts was not related to changes in speech policies. But the timing of the events raised questions about whether the company was really loosening speech restrictions, and were another example of its challenges in content enforcement.
A spokesperson for Meta attributed some recent incidents, involving abortion pill-related posts and accounts, to a ban on the sale of pharmaceutical drugs on its platforms without proper certification. The company also described some incidents as “over-enforcement”.
Meta, which has previously suppressed posts from abortion providers, is Said It was making changes to its speech policies in part to reduce the number of posts that were unfairly taken down.
“We have been quite clear in recent weeks that we want to allow more speech and reduce enforcement mistakes,” Meta said in a statement.
Lisa Femia, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that since the Supreme Court is set to overrule Roe v. Wade had overturned, “There has been a massive increase in social media platforms removing content related to reproductive health care and especially abortion pills. This is an ongoing, growing problem and poses a real threat to people seeking important information and guidance about health care online. ,
Help Access, one of the largest abortion pill providers in the United States, said some posts had been removed on its Facebook account and blurred on its Instagram account since November, with more posts blurred in recent days. The abortion pill service said it had been blocked from accessing its Facebook account since November, and its Instagram account was suspended last week, though it has since been reinstated.
The Instagram accounts of other abortion pill providers, including Women Helping Women and Just the Pill, were also suspended in recent days. The providers who gave them the suspensions after Meta said their accounts “did not follow our community standards on guns, drugs, and other prohibited items.” Both accounts were restored on Thursday.
The Instagram account of Hey Jen, another abortion pill provider, was recently invisible in Instagram searches, said Rebecca Davis, who leads marketing at Hey Jen. That’s until something like this happened in 2023 when Meta overturned it, he said.
“We already know that this suppression actively prevents He Jane from reaching people who are seeking timely health care information,” Ms. Davis said. “Given Meta’s recent promises around free speech, we are incredibly disappointed to see how the platform is restricting our free speech.”
The Food and Drug Administration allows telehealth providers to prescribe online and deliver by mail prescription drugs that cause abortion, mifepristone and misoprostol. Twelve states have banned abortion and more have imposed gestation limits or restrictions on mail-order pills. But providers in states where abortion is legal are mailing pills to the states with restrictions under Shield laws, to protect them.
Shira Frenkel Contribution reporting.
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