Aid Access and Hey Jane, abortion pill providers, report difficulties accessing their Instagram accounts and posts, limiting users' ability to find crucial information about abortion care. This incident highlights Meta's ongoing efforts to restrict abortion-related content on its platform, even as it claims to promote free speech and reduce enforcement errors.
Earlier this week, several posts on the Instagram page of Aid Access, an abortion pill provider, were inaccessible to the public. Some images were blurred out, with no option to click through and view the post. Others appeared simply as a gray square with nondescript alt text, as if the image didn’t load.
Aid Access connects patients with doctors who provide abortion pills via telehealth appointments, and the posts that were blocked from being viewed included instructions for performing at-home abortions using pills. The issues on Instagram — first reported by Jessica Valenti — also reportedly made it difficult to find the Aid Access account using the app’s search function. By Thursday evening, Meta had restored a handful of Aid Access posts, though some appear to still be missing. This latest incident is just another example of how Meta has restricted abortion information online for years. It also comes in the middle of Meta’s right-wing pivot, as the company has begun allowing more transphobic, racist, and otherwise hateful content on its platforms as it courts Donald Trump. Medication abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy can safely be done at home, according to the World Health Organization. Licensed providers like those working with Aid Access have prescribed abortion pills to hundreds of thousands of patients. Thanks to shield laws, which protect healthcare workers who provide the procedure, patients in states where abortion is banned or restricted can also order abortion medication. Social media is an important place for patients to seek information about abortions, says Rebecca Davis of Hey Jane, which offers virtual reproductive care like abortions and birth control. “ will often turn to social media to just make sure we’re legit,” says Davis, who leads marketing at the company. “We’ve spent a lot of time and energy to really build up our social presence, so we’re verified on Instagram, we’re verified on TikTok.” Hey Jane encountered restrictions on Instagram in recent days as well. Davis says the group has gotten messages that its Instagram profile was not easily accessible through the app’s search features. The Verge was able to replicate the issue: typing in “heyjane” or “hey jane” did not display the account as suggested. Users would need to know the account’s full handle, @heyjanehealth, in order for it to appear as a suggestion. “We know that by not showing up in these searches we’re directly impacting people who are actively seeking this very timely, essential healthcare from getting the information that they need to make decisions,” Davis told The Verge.
META INSTAGRAM ABORTION ACCESS SOCIAL MEDIA RESTRICTIONS FREE SPEECH REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
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