Our Stop Censoring Abortion Campaign Uncovers a Social Media Censorship Crisis (EFF)

https://www.eff.org/pages/our-stop-censoring-abortion-campaign-uncovers-social-media-censorship-crisis

CC licensed, but only a bit here.
There's a TON of useful info at the two links below.



BY JENNIFER PINSOF | September 15, 2025

This is the first installment in a blog series documenting EFF's findings from the Stop Censoring Abortion campaign. You can read additional posts here.

We’ve been hearing that social media platforms are censoring abortion-related content, even when no law requires them to do so. Now, we’ve got the receipts.

For months, EFF has been investigating stories from users whose abortion-related content has been taken down or otherwise suppressed by major social media platforms. In collaboration with our allies—including Plan C, Women on Web, Reproaction, and Women First Digital—we launched the #StopCensoringAbortion campaign to collect and amplify these stories.

Submissions came from a variety of users, including personal accounts, influencers, healthcare clinics, research organizations, and advocacy groups from across the country and abroad—a spectrum that underscores the wide reach of this censorship. Since the start of the year, we’ve seen nearly 100 examples of abortion-related content taken down by social media platforms.

We analyzed these takedowns, deletions, and bans, comparing the content to what platform policies allow—particularly those of Meta—and found that almost none of the submissions we received violated any of the platforms’ stated policies. Most of the censored posts simply provided factual, educational information. This Threads post is a perfect example:

Screenshot of removed post submitted by Lauren Kahre to EFF
Screenshot submitted by Lauren Kahre to EFF

In this post, health policy strategist Lauren Kahre discussed abortion pills’ availability via mail. She provided factual information about two FDA approved medications (mifepristone and misoprostol), including facts like shelf life and how to store pills safely.

Lauren’s post doesn’t violate any of Meta’s policies and shouldn’t have been removed. But don’t just take our word for it: Meta has publicly insisted that posts like these should not be censored. In a February 2024 letter to Amnesty International, Meta Human Rights Policy Director Miranda Sissons wrote: “Organic content (i.e., non paid content) educating users about medication abortion is allowed and does not violate our Community Standards. Additionally, providing guidance on legal access to pharmaceuticals is allowed.”

Still, shortly after Lauren shared this post, Meta took it down. Perhaps even more perplexing was their explanation for doing so. According to Meta, the post was removed because “[they] don’t allow people to buy, sell, or exchange drugs that require a prescription from a doctor or a pharmacist.”