Instagram and Facebook Blocked and Hid Abortion Pill Providers' Posts
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
It is funny how loosening restrictions somehow seems to result in more moderation of specific topics, tags, etc.
Clearly, when he said "I vow to loosen restrictions on online speech", what he actually meant was "I vow to loosen [the circle of people who get to set] restrictions on online speech".
Obviously.
/s
At this point?
Over the last decade, they've had like a dozen major scandals (hundreds of millions of passwords in plaintext, cambridge analytica, etc.).
They've never worried.
Frankly, can’t really judge them. That is probably the optimal thing to do in the current business environment.
And yes its the right "business move" but I have plenty of hate left in my heart for buisnessmen.
Overall though, I feel like if I'm going to single anyone out, its those with the most power and those benefiting the most.
This is not true and you'll never understand politics if you think this.
(What actually happens is that being in Congress is such a horrible job that only insane people would want to do it, so the people with money find congresspeople who /already agree with them/ and are trying to keep them from leaving for a less stressful normal career.)
I think it might be OpenSecrets' fault. They're great and all, but they report donations from employees of companies as if they're from the companies themselves, which produces nonsense like "health insurance companies donated to Bernie Sanders". No they didn't!
Anyone that remembers the Graffiti Wall knows the real thing that was lost here. It had it's issues (Farmville was the worst / most annoying version of Harvest Moon ever made) but it was worth saving.
It was also worth building the infrastructure required to make it function, because it ultimately damaged Facebook in ways I don't think they really still understand. Their abortive attempt to build a metaverse or a Twitter that feels more like a prison, vs successful, beautiful, creative, wild interpretations of a metaverse that lead to things like Minecraft and Bluesky. They simply won't succeed a these endeavors without meaningful third party access. Improving upon that problem might be a more productive use of their time than kissing political butts if they want to actually succeed in this space.
https://www.facebook.com/business/help/263390265553560?id=43...
I find it very doubtful that post-election Meta policy had anything to do with this.
It would appear the posts were OK after all.
> You certainly don’t see almost anything about other prescription meds.
I get pretty much non-stop Ozempic ads on Facebook.
> "Aid Access, one of the largest abortion pill providers in the United States, said some posts were removed on its Facebook account and blurred out on its Instagram account since November, with more posts blurred in recent days. The abortion pill service said it has been blocked from accessing its Facebook account since November, and its Instagram account was suspended last week, though it has since been restored."
You don't think the November timing is the slightest bit suspicious?
To regard it as suspicious I would have to know:
- Has this happened before? - are they actually compliant with the rules? Or are they being banned and then unbanned because we’re sympathetic to them? - was anyone mass reporting them? Was this human or automatic? - how often are these things banned?
It’s really a miracle most of these outfits are operating at all. In most cases we’re talking about filling out an anonymous form to get prescription medication. It’s not legal. Some of them try to provide a form of legality as a cover (“we definitely have a doctor review your anonymous form”) but not anything that would hold up to scrutiny. It’s not surprising that very few of them are likely following Facebooks rules on top of that.
Of course maybe they should be legal and the situation should be totally different, but Facebook banning grey market prescription drug sellers that almost certainly violate their rules is not surprising. It’s also not surprising they ease up when the NYT asks about it even if there are rule violations because I doubt Meta wants any part of this debate.
Best of luck shipping pills to "nobody".
And you have to pick it up.
If my address was listed next to my posts on Reddit, I would not feel super anonymous.
One of the first results in Google is https://www.plancpills.org/abortion-pill/california#pharmaci...
Listed there I checked some of their recommended stores. The first that I clicked accept Bitcoin payment and require no insurance details (medside24). It does look like it's possible to do this fully anonymous without much hassle. I have no problem with that by the way.
Bitcoin is absolutely not anonymous. To believe otherwise is a grave error.
Again, I am not saying things should be this way, but we're talking about black/grey market prescription drug suppliers mailing prescription drugs to people pseudonymously/anonymously, usually/sometimes in violation of US law and almost certainly nearly always in violation of the FB rules I posted above.
If this was literally any other prescription drug, nobody would find this result surprising.
NB: In contradiction to one of your downthread posts, very few of these places are taking insurance information. (Maybe even "none", but I am willing to believe someone does.) Usually one of their selling points is that it is "private". The article for example cites Aid Access, which does not. Neither do any of the sites in the downstream commenter I clicked on. I encourage you to actually look at these sites and see how easy it is. I am not saying that it is a bad thing, but clearly it is not aboveboard.
> The Instagram account of Hey Jane, another abortion pill provider, was recently invisible in Instagram search, said Rebecca Davis, who leads marketing at Hey Jane.
Takes government insurance. Telehealth appointment.
> The Instagram accounts of other abortion pill providers, including Women Help Women and Just the Pill, were also suspended in recent days.
Telehealth, looking to take Medicaid. Specific states only, presumably due to it being properly regulated.
They’re going after the prescribing docs now. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr8jv2yjz9o
> Telehealth, looking to take Medicaid.
"Looking to take Medicaid" is a strange way of saying they currently do not accept any form of insurance.
Hey Jane is the only one I have seen thus far. And of course, there's a reason why they also accept eg. Cashapp rather than just taking CC/debit cards - they expect most of their customers will not want them to have any actual information on them.
And again, any prescription med promotion, including 100 legit prescription meds, require some byzantine bureaucratic process with FB themselves - not just being legal or de facto legal.
for that crowd, this a puff piece.
You may not agree with the current administration, but they won the popular vote. What would you rather them do, defy the current administration? Sounds pretty anti-democratic to me. Am I missing a deeper principle here or is it just a matter of "companies should do what I think is right"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=159&v=9tocssf3w80&feature=yo...
And who is the arbiter of "right"? Does this boil down to just "I don't agree with what meta is doing"?
Ideally, each individual, with society deciding via laws and regulation when people disagree.
> Does this boil down to just "I don't agree with what meta is doing"?
No, this boils down to "it is bad for even billionaires to be terrified of opposing the new President". Who has, for the record, previously called for Zuck's imprisonment.
That's a total 180 from the OP and most of this comment thread, which was seemingly about excoriating meta/zuck's behavior.
I think him feeling like he has to be is terrifying.
It would be one thing if Meta content teams sat down, thought about it, and decided that abortion pills aren't something they're comfortable having on their platform. But then they wouldn't have restored accounts when the New York Times started asking. It looks a lot more like an unprincipled decision to make their lives a bit easier by putting their thumbs on the scale against views the government doesn't like. (It's not like they've never done that before!)
Does this concept of yours apply to, say, the Heritage Foundation, Musk's Twitter, Fox News, etc. during the Biden presidency?
The Heritage Foundation and Fox News are basically advocacy organizations so their remit includes criticizing the government. For that reason they get a pass. I don't know what you're referring to with "Musk's Twitter [...] during the Biden presidency", so you're going to have to elaborate.
Musk, as the owner of Twitter, opposed and frequently "defied" Biden and his policies.
Was that "anti-democratic", as your theory appears to assert?
> The Heritage Foundation and Fox News are basically advocacy organizations so their remit includes criticizing the government.
Everyone gets to criticize the government. That's how the First Amendment works. It's not restricted to advocacy organizations.
Examples?
>Everyone gets to criticize the government. That's how the First Amendment works. It's not restricted to advocacy organizations.
Does this extend to "exxon hiring lobbyists to convince congress that climate change isn't an issue"?
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/06/tech/twitter-files-lawyers/in...
(Plus a couple hundred million dollars towards his opponent's campaign.)
> Does this extend to "exxon hiring lobbyists to convince congress that climate change isn't an issue"?
Yes, that was and is explicitly legal.
(Morally shitty. But that's freedom!)
The roles are entirely reversed here. Rather than the company voluntarily complying with the administration, musk alleges that biden administration officials illegally try to pressure twitter. I agree that if trump tried to illegally pressure zuck into censoring abortion pills, that would be improper on the part of trump, but at the same time I wouldn't fault zuck for caving.
>Yes, that was and is explicitly legal.
>(Morally shitty. But that's freedom!)
The question is whether it's "democratic", not whether it's illegal. The fact that you think it's "morally shitty", suggests think that you agree it's antidemocratic.
He is clearly caving to pressure, either present or expected.
> The fact that you think it's "morally shitty", suggests think that you agree it's antidemocratic.
No. Democracy and shittiness are not mutually exclusive.
this is currently being tested, with Trump revoking student visas based on students criticizing the government.
As opposed to "unaccountable billionaires" or whatever?
Any scenario in which a billionaire, with all their power and resources, is deeply scared of pissing off the President - to the point of doing a public 180 on everything - is one in which us much less powerful regular people should be very scared.
> The company also described some of the incidents as “over-enforcement.”
If the reason for the takedown is that the popular will of the people, as manifest in the preferences of the current President, deems this thing bad, and therefore we're taking it down, then that's a) inaccurate and b) deeply out of step with American tradition, principle, and governing philosophy.
Is the implication here that any sort of proactive action by companies to dodge enforcement actions a bad thing? For instance, if after Biden appointed Lina Khan to the FTC, and M&A firms suddenly stopped doing deals out of anti-trust concerns, is that bad? Or is it somehow only limited to advertising?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/business/media/paramount-...
FTA:
> Now Mr. Trump is back in the White House, and many executives at CBS’s parent company, Paramount, believe that settling the lawsuit would increase the odds that the Trump administration does not block or delay their planned multibillion-dollar merger with another company, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.
In general, if an incoming administration signals a change in regulatory priorities or interpretation, and that causes businesses broadly to adjust their business plans, I think that's a reasonable reflection, after a relatively long chain and with all the caveats of the US electoral system, of the "people's will" as expressed in governance after an election. Lina Khan indicated that the FTC was going to take a much closer look at mergers with a renewed eye towards competition, not just consumer wellbeing, and that broadly changed the math on whether companies expected their mergers to go through. That's what I would expect - that's the point of government and regulation here, and the change in those priorities following an election fits broadly into "the government as the people's tool for constraining powerful actors."
However, a company changing its policies or plans specifically because it is concerned about the whims and wills of the president - in other words, companies specifically attempting to curry personal favor with the president to get better treatment - is not that. If Paramount was worried that recent changes to the law or changes to how the FCC or FTC interpreted regulations affected their chances of winning the lawsuit or getting the merger through in the same way that, say, NBC would be worried about it, that's normal. Paramount is worried that the president is angry at them and they are going to be specifically targeted, and so they're going to give the president a large cash settlement so he'll instruct the FTC to let them complete their merger. That's not normal - or at least, it's not good.
defying an administration that you disagree with, within the rule of law, is just about the most American and democratic thing I can imagine.
this is a corporation, not an arm of the government.
Purdue Pharma caused the opioid crisis which killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. State and federal governments thinks it's liable for billions in damages. Perdue disagrees and is fighting it tooth and nail in the courts, which is within their rights. Would you characterize this as "the most American and democratic thing I can imagine"?
I'm not arguing they shouldn't have the right to defend themselves in court, only that most people wouldn't think that as being "patriotic". It's also not hard to find people characterizing Citizens United v. FEC as "undemocratic", even though it theoretically emobies the democratic principles of free speech and the supreme court acting as a check.
A republican candidate narrowly won the popular vote for the first time in 20 years, a metric that has no value in our system of government. And somehow you think this factoid puts the current administration in a position where they dare not be defied? Give me a fucking break.
I can't tell whether you're trying to make a nitpicky point about how the president is elected, or you're trying to claim the concept of political legitimacy doesn't exist.
Overstating one’s narrow win as a giant mandate does too.
The "giant" part is inserted entirely by you. The point is that he's elected president, and the usual excuse about the popular vote doesn't apply.
https://www.npr.org/2024/12/16/g-s1-38003/trump-mandate-pres...
> "America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate," he said.
Which given the maps at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_United_States_presidentia... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_presidentia... is just a dumb claim.
They didn’t. They won 49.8%. But I’ve got to be honest, any logic along those lines rings very hollow these days. We’ve been told over and over about the “tyranny of the majority” being why a number of sparsely populated states get a disproportionate vote on the country’s destiny. To pivot just because the popular vote flipped to the other side (which, again, it didn’t) feels very… convenient.
(Yeah, deleted FB almost a decade ago. I had tried to convince myself Instagram was different somehow.)
I hope you're right
That's what came to mind when I saw the title. Relatedly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37248748
No ads from what I can see and very little disturbing posts so far, and I can have my daily dose of #britishshorthair
jk, of course it isn't fair to judge anyone for not leaving social media - it's actually quite valuable at times and going without it feels like missing out.
Be interesting to see how they justify that under the GDPR regulations ("right to be forgotten") for European/UK users.
1) your social connections as of your last usage of the account
2) your behavior profile from all across the web
3) potential ongoing new information about you based on the activity of your social connections
Would deleting all posts/friends before deleting the account make a difference?
It's not huge in the grand scheme of things, but it's something to consider.
By way of example, the Catholic Church holds enormous political power in the US by virtue of its claim to over 50 million members. When the Church speaks up, politicians sit up and take notes. Less than 25% of those members actually attend church weekly, but the others are still counted as "Catholics" because you have to go well out of your way to have yourself formally removed from the church membership rolls. [1] As of 2010 there is apparently no way to do that voluntarily at all.
Facebook works the same way. Once you're in, your account is never truly closed or deleted AFAIK. (I've tried.)
We may debate MAU versus other metrics for assessing user activity, but all the politicians see is "We have 3 billion accounts worldwide, over 250 million of them in the US." Like the church, Facebook is able to wield political power in your name even if you signed up many years ago and now disagree vehemently with everything they stand for.
It seems that the only guaranteed way to avoid this sorry situation, short of changing your name or faking your death, is to refrain from signing up in the first place.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_act_of_defection_from_t...
This only matters if people use the numbers that the Catholic Church tells them. The real reason people get counted as Catholic (or any religion or group) is because those people identify as Catholic on surveys and such. People in my social circle identify as Catholic while also not having been to a Mass in years outside of an invited event (e.g. wedding). So they would still get counted.
GDPR applies to data subjects who are "in the Union", regardless of residency or citizenship.
What's the moral of the story? Are they claiming that Meta is against abortions?
The company pays for employees to travel to get abortions and pays for egg freezing.
It's also possible that it was as innocuous as aggressive automod.
They've every legal right to do this.
We want proud American censorship, not commie Chinese ones
craigslist used to have free personals, and escort ads.
It seems like your entire argument here is just vague sinophobic hand-waving. Do you have even a single example of TickTock/CCP harming American youth that hasn't been done worse by US social media and government?
To be clear, I'm not arguing that China is better than the US in any general way, I'm specifically making the claim that American government and social media harms Americans more than any other government or social media harms Americans.
Because foreigners are even less accountable to Americans and even less interested in their well being than any domestic group? It just stands to reason, there's not even the weak ties of being members of the same group.
I mean, to be a little outlandish: if there was a conflict, and some foreign adversary could transmit a mind virus to Americans that would cause them to go on murderous rampages and kill everyone, they'd probably do it. It'd be an instant win, and there'd be some sweet, sweet land to colonize afterwards.
That is not necessarily true. The Hitlers and Putins of the world will happily sacrifice their own citizenry and their country's future for more power in the moment. It's entirely possible for some foreigners to hold more goodwill towards a country than its own leadership.
> I mean, to be a little outlandish: if there was a conflict, and some foreign adversary could transmit a mind virus to Americans that would cause them to go on murderous rampages and kill everyone, they'd probably do it. It'd be an instant win, and there'd be some sweet, sweet land to colonize afterwards.
Several countries are entirely capable of doing this with nukes.
Don't you think they'd be even more willing to sacrifice Americans or other foreigners?
> Several countries are entirely capable of doing this with nukes.
No, and you're kind of missing the point, which was the adversarial leader cares less about foreigners. Also: nukes are somewhat controlled with MAD, and they'd spoil that sweet, sweet land with fallout.
I'm saying I'd rather, say, France's Macron calling the shots here than an American-born version of Hitler.
> Because foreigners are even less accountable to Americans and even less interested in their well being than any domestic group?
In my example, the foreign group probably has my well being as a higher priority than the domestic one.
If we ignore murder mind viruses and look at what's actually going on.
I’ll be charitable and assume your point is “any corruption is so unbelievably awful that we might as well have the worst possible form of it if we have any at all.”
Vs the local govt that has a monopoly on violence
What one censors the other doesn't, and you get less censorship when there are more options available.
People get removed from the heads of companies they start all the time. That's how Elon became the "founder" of Tesla in the minds of most people: he got rid of the original guys.
He hasn't been removed from the leadership position (despite a lot of things that should have gotten him removed, if not imprisoned - psychological experiments on users without informed consent is a good example [0]) because in the 60s and 70s some other sociopath said that the main social responsibility of companies is to create value for shareholders, and he's done that, so he gets to stay.
Which leads me to...
> Start a competitor if you think you can do a better job.
You have a significant fraction of a trillion dollars lying around for me to fund that with? At least some of that will need to go towards brib... er... lobbying; the guy was literally hosting the President of the United States at his inauguration [1]
It's almost as if the form of economics practiced in the United States rewards bad personal behavior while conducting a company's business with enough money to avoid pretty much any form of consequence.
[0]- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-...
[1]- https://apnews.com/article/trump-zuckerberg-inaugural-recept...
Also, if we're playing a game of 'who started it', look at the response to the artists and activists against the Global War on Terror. The OG cancel culture
Hardly the OG. We've kicked people out of our social groups since before we had language; all the other primates do it naturally in the wild just like we do.
McCarthy's blacklists, Focus on the Family trying to knock shows off the air, tarring and feathering during the revolution, the Alien and Sedition Acts... this country has always practiced cancel culture.
Hate the idea that the right never would have done all the things they promised they want to do, if Biden hadn't "started it". As if the problem of Biden is that he was too radical, went too far, and did too much lol
What's even the material point here? That "the left" pierced the taboo on speech censorship? Trump's currently wiping his ass with the separation of powers enshrined in the constitution. He does not care about taboo.
With this story it appears to be primarily about restrictions on advertising pharmaceuticals, but if it was simply Meta considering abortions immoral, then yeah... Meta has been banning a lot of legal speech simply because it was considered immoral in certain circles. So to all the people outraged over this: You reap what you sow, and hopefully you learn to be careful about what you wish for in the future because it can always go both ways.