Meta Suspended Abortion Pill Providers’ Accounts, Removed Posts

Some companies that sell abortion pills online have had their accounts suspended on Meta’s Instagram social media platform and their posts suppressed on Meta’s Instagram and Facebook.

According to The New York Times, Meta said that companies including Aid Access, Just the Pill, Women Help Women and Hey Jane were part of what Meta called “over-moderation” that included account suspension and blurring, the removal or blocking of posts.

Meta told the Times that it restored some accounts this week. A supplier of abortion pills said its accounts had been affected since November, the Times reported. Providers also told the newspaper that overmoderation that has impacted their accounts and posts has increased over the past two weeks.

Meta told the Times that the problem had to do with its policies on the content of drug suppliers. Asked for comment by CNET, Meta spokeswoman Erin Logan echoed this.

“We prohibit the sale of pharmaceutical drugs on our platforms without proper certification, and our policies in this area have not changed,” he said. “These groups have experienced a variety of problems – some due to the correct application, as well as excessive application. But we have been quite clear in recent weeks that we want to allow more speech and reduce application errors – and we are committed to doing this.”

Meta also said that the blurring of posts was a technical issue involving content cross-posted from Facebook to Instagram, and that the flagged posts have been restored. Some posts, the company said, did not violate Facebook’s policies.

The timing of Meta’s mishandling of accounts and posts comes as the company has changed its strategy and removed fact-checking on Facebook. favor of community notes. It is also closer aligned itself with new President Donald Trump. But Meta says the moderation of accounts belonging to abortion pill providers is not related to changes to Facebook’s speech policy or other Meta changes.

Trump, meanwhile, railed against social media companies, and he issued an executive order on Tuesday aimed at what he calls 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 The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Biden administration in a case that claims he overreached in his contacts with social media companies. As noticed from NPR, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said in her opinion for the court’s majority that the parties suing the government have not offered any evidence to support their claims that the government pressured the social media companies media to limit their speech.

Aid Access, one of the abortion pill providers affected, and, the Times noted, one of the largest providers of abortion pills in the United States, has more than 53,000 followers on Instagram and more than 5,000 on Facebook. In an Instagram placethe company said: “We know that some of our posts are still blurry or missing, and we’re working hard to fix this.”