Meta has removed or banned dozens of accounts belonging to abortion access providers, gay groups and reproductive health organizations in the past weeks, in what campaigners call one of the “biggest waves of censorship” on its platforms in years.
The removals and bans began in October and targeted the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp accounts of more than 50 organizations worldwide, some of which were serving thousands of people – appearing to be part of a growing pressure by Meta to limit reproductive health and queer content on its platforms. Many of these were from Europe and the UK, although the restrictions also affected groups serving women in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.
Repro Uncensored, an NGO that tracks digital censorship against movements focused on gender, health and justice, said it has tracked 210 incidents of account removal and severe restrictions affecting these groups this year, compared to 81 last year.
Meta denied the increasing trend of censorship. “Every organization and individual on our platform is subject to the same rules, and any claims of enforcement based on group affiliation or advocacy are unfounded,” it said in a statement. There have been no changes to its policies on abortion-related content, he said.
Campaigners say the action signals META is adopting a Trump-era approach to women’s health and LGBTQ+ issues globally. Earlier this year, it appeared on Instagram and Facebook to “shadow-ban” or remove the accounts of organizations that help Americans find abortion pills. Shadow-banning occurs when a social media platform severely restricts the visibility of a user’s content without notifying the user.
In this latest purge, it blocked abortion hotlines in countries where abortion is legal, banned gay and sex-positive accounts in Europe, and also removed posts containing non-explicit, cartoon depictions of nudity.
Martha Dimitratou, executive director of Repro Uncensored, said, “Within the last year, especially since the new US presidency, we have seen a definite increase in accounts being removed not only in the US, but as a ripple effect around the world.”
“This is, at least to my knowledge, one of the largest waves of censorship that we’re seeing,” he said.
Campaigners have accused Meta of being condescending and unresponsive, with the company only giving vague reasons why some accounts were removed – and appearing reluctant to engage.
In an email shared with the Guardian, a Meta consultant appears to invite several reproductive health organizations to a closed-door online briefing about “the challenges you may face with Meta’s content moderation policies.”
The email said the meeting “will not be an opportunity to criticize META’s practices or offer recommendations for policy changes”.
Dimitratou said such closed-door meetings have happened before, adding that they “reinforce the power imbalance that allows big tech to decide whose voices are amplified and whose voices are silenced”.
In another example, a Meta employee advised an affected organization in a personal message to move away from the platform entirely and start a mailing list, saying that the ban was likely to continue. Meta said that he did not send this message.
Carolina Are, a fellow at Northumbria University’s Center for Digital Citizens, said Meta’s recent removals are part of a broader pattern of the company purging accounts, and then — at times — appearing to back down after public pressure.
He said, “It wouldn’t be such a big problem if platform appeals actually worked, but they don’t. And appeals are the foundation of any democratic justice system.”
Meta said it aims to reduce enforcement mistakes against accounts on its platform, but added that the appeals process for banned accounts has been frustratingly slow.
Organizations affected by the restrictions include Netherlands-registered Women Aid Women, a non-profit that provides information about abortion to women around the world, including Brazil, the Philippines and Poland. Its executive director, Kinga Jelinska, said it archives about 150,000 emails from women each year.
Helping Women Women has been on Facebook for 11 years, and although its account has been suspended before, this is the first time it has been completely banned, Jelinska said. The ban could be “life threatening,” she said, pushing some women toward dangerous, less reliable information sources. Little explanation was given for the ban.
A message from Meta sent to the group on November 13 said its page “does not follow our Community Standards on prescription drugs”, adding: “We know this is frustrating, but we want to keep Facebook safe and welcoming for everyone.”
“It’s a very brief explanation, there’s a sense of ambiguity,” Jelinska said. “They just removed it. That’s all. We don’t even know what post it was about.”
Meta said more than half of the accounts flagged by Repro Uncensored have been reinstated, including Women Help Women, which it said was removed in error. “The disabled accounts were rightfully removed for violating several of our policies, including our human exploitation policy,” it said.
When abortion was decriminalized in Colombia in 2022, Jacarandas was founded by a group of young feminists to provide advice to women and girls on how to get free, legal abortions. Viviana Monsalve, the group’s executive director, said its WhatsApp helpline had been blocked three times since October and then restored. The WhatsApp account is currently banned and Monsalve said he has received little information from Meta about whether that will continue.
“he wrote [Meta] One email and said, ‘Hey, we’re a feminist organization. We do abortion work. Abortion is allowed up to 24 weeks in Colombia. There is permission to give information about it,” Monsalve said.
Without META’s cooperation, Monsalve said it is difficult to plan for the future. “If you are not sure [a ban] It will happen tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, because he did not answer.”
Meta said: “Our policies and enforcement regarding abortion drug-related content have not changed: We allow posts and advertisements promoting health services such as abortion, as well as the discussion and debate around them, as long as they follow our policies.”
While groups like Jacarandas and Women Help Women had their accounts removed entirely, other groups said they faced having their posts banned by Meta and shadow-banning their content.
Fatma Ibrahim, director of Sex Talk Arabic, a UK-based platform that offers Arabic-language content on sexual and reproductive health, said the organization received a message almost every week from Meta last year saying that its page “does not follow the rules” and would not be recommended to others based on posts related to sexuality and sexual health.
Two weeks ago, these messages escalated into a warning, in which Meta noted its new policies on nudity and removed a post from Sex Talk Arabic’s page. The offending post was an artistic depiction of a naked couple, obscured by hearts.
Ibrahim said the warning was “condescending”, and that Meta’s moderation was US-centric and lacked context.
“Despite the profits they make from our sector, they do not invest enough to understand what social issues women fight against and why we use social media platforms for such battles,” she said.
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