Some companies that sell abortion pills online have had accounts suspended on Meta’s Instagram social media platform and their posts suppressed on Instagram as well as on Meta’s Facebook.
According to The New York Times, Meta said companies including Aid Access, Just the Pill, Women Help Women and Hey Jane were part of what Meta referred to as “over-moderation” that included account suspension and the blurring, removal or blocking of posts.
Meta told the Times it restored some accounts this week. One abortion pill provider said its accounts have been affected since November, the Times reported. Providers also told the paper that overmoderation that impacted their accounts and posts ramped up during the last two weeks.
Meta told the Times that the issue had to do with its policies on content from drug providers. Asked for comment by CNET, Meta spokesperson Erin Logan reiterated this.
“We prohibit the sale of pharmaceutical drugs on our platforms without proper certification, and our policies in this area have not changed,” she said. “These groups are experiencing a variety of issues — some due to correct enforcement, as well as over-enforcement. But we’ve been quite clear in recent weeks that we want to allow more speech and reduce enforcement mistakes — and we’re committed to doing that.”
Meta also said the blurring of posts was a technical issue involving content cross-posted from Facebook to Instagram, and that the flagged posts are being restored. Some posts, the company said, didn’t violate Facebook policies.
The timing of Meta’s mishandling of the accounts and posts comes as the company has shifted its strategy and removed fact-checking on Facebook in favor of community notes. It’s also more closely aligned itself with new President Donald Trump. But Meta says the moderation of accounts belonging to abortion pill providers isn’t related to speech policy changes on Facebook or to other Meta changes.
Trump, meanwhile, has railed against social media companies, and he issued an executive order Tuesday aimed at what he’s called government censorship of social platforms. The president and others on the right have accused the Biden administration of suppressing speech on such platforms. In June, however, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Biden administration in a case alleging it had overreached in its contacts with social media companies. As noted by NPR, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said in her opinion for the court majority that the parties who sued the government hadn’t offered any proof to support their claims that the government pressured social media companies into restricting their speech.
Aid Access, one of the affected abortion pill providers, and, the Times noted, one of the largest providers of abortion pills in the US, has more than 53,000 followers on Instagram and over 5,000 on Facebook. In an Instagram post, the company said, “We know some of our posts are still blurred or missing, and we’re working hard to fix that.”
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