Instagram and Facebook Blocked and Hid Abortion Pill Providers' Posts
61 comments
·January 31, 2025srameshc
ziddoap
>At this point Meta doesn't even worry about these news
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.
tokioyoyo
They just learned, like every single company, that nobody has willpower, ability or memory to keep up with the news. Wait a week or two, say nothing, people will forget. The product is intrenched enough in the society that nobody will move unless something happens to the product itself.
Frankly, can’t really judge them. That is probably the optimal thing to do in the current business environment.
Marsymars
I don't think "keeping up with the news" is really the problem. The problem is that "the news" is primarily about entertainment, not information, and so it isn't actionable. If you care about being informed about actionable information, then your good sources of information are RSS, long-form articles, books, etc.
spencerflem
People keeping up with the news doesn't do much either when our lawmakers are bought and paid for.
And yes its the right "business move" but I have plenty of hate left in my heart for buisnessmen.
tclancy
Eh, you can still judge them.
hammock
I wonder if this has always been true
trhway
Seems to be. Zuck recently, once Trump came in, clearly stated that the Biden admin forced him to censor Covid info. Now he censors what Trump wants him to.
I wouldn't blame him. Case in point - Durov(Telegram) had opposite, government defying position, until he spent some time recently in the French prison. After some time there he made a public statement to the effect that he "recognized the faults and mistakes of his previous ways".
Amezarak
We’re talking about posts promoting prescription medications. There were always strict rules about this on Facebook (banned by default) and the fact that most of these posts ever stayed up was more likely a result of oversight and possibly politics in the first place. You certainly don’t see almost anything about other prescription meds.
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.
ceejayoz
> "The company restored some of the accounts and posts on Thursday, after The New York Times asked about the actions."
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?
Amezarak
No, I don’t.
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.
reverendsteveii
Having trouble getting past the paywall. Can you confirm that these were posts directly promoting the prescription drugs, or were other posts by this organization also hidden?
1oooqooq
more likely they paid for this to be printed.
devindotcom
paid the new york times for a critical article with a triple byline?
ziddoap
>Mr. Zuckerberg vowed to loosen restrictions on online speech
It is funny how loosening restrictions somehow seems to result in more moderation of specific topics, tags, etc.
cdme
They don’t want free speech, they want a captive audience to harass.
gtirloni
Double speak from people in power, as usual.
reverendsteveii
Every time conservatives win a victory for freedom the total number of things you're actually capable of doing goes down.
WeylandYutani
Freedom from religion is not one of the rights Americans have.
margalabargala
You're parsing the meaning from his sentence wrong.
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
beardyw
Obviously they are trying to curry favour at the moment and don't care what reasonable people might think. My instinct is that it will all prove to have been futile and they will be hung out to dry.
ceejayoz
Yes, most likely. Zuck'll get the Rudy Giuliani treatment eventually.
reverendsteveii
Fascism needs enemies more than allies. Everyone gets Giuliani'd eventually.
1oooqooq
it all depends on which platform can deliver votes.
spencerflem
Also hope you're right on this, but I fear it may not matter much anymore.
spencerflem
I suspect we'll be in this administration for a long time
I hope you're right
TheChaplain
If anyone is interested in an instagram alternative, I humbly suggest Pixelfed.
No ads from what I can see and very little disturbing posts so far, and I can have my daily dose of #britishshorthair
eCa
And for those so inclined, not too difficult to install your own instance (the official install guide has a couple of unnecessary pitfalls though).
cozzyd
just deleted my Facebook account... (which I've had for nearly 20 years... but this made me unreasonably angry).
righthand
Now every time you get the urge to log back in, switch to a neglected activity/interest to focus in on. In 30-60 days (I can’t remember the grace period) you’ll have a deeper understanding of this interest and be Facebook free.
cynicalsecurity
I have some bad news for you, my friend. Your account has never been deleted and never will be. But thanks for finally quitting.
ryandrake
Serious question: If you never log back in, what does it matter if you have an account or not? An account I never use doesn't appear to have any affect on me.
tshaddox
They’ve got:
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
sophacles
There are some social ramifications. I haven't used my Facebook account in years. Around the holidays I happened to run into an old college buddy and we caught up a bit. It was great, but there was a bit of awkwardness around how he had been in town a couple times and hit me up on facebook to get together, but I had never responded... It's all good between us now that that has been cleared up, however I sure do wish that he didn't think I was blowing him off and he had known to try another contact method. We missed some good times together.
It's not huge in the grand scheme of things, but it's something to consider.
zimpenfish
> Your account has never been deleted and never will be.
Be interesting to see how they justify that under the GDPR regulations ("right to be forgotten") for European/UK users.
ceejayoz
One of our EU devs tried to exercise his GDPR rights to be exempt from automated decision making (there was a clear app review bug; thousands of apps impacted at the time). It was quite impossible to do so.
cozzyd
I'm a dual US/EU citizen. Can I use the GDPR?
throwaway314155
Genocide in Myanmar didn't do the trick for ya?
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.
9283409232
Is this the free speech I've heard so much about?
50208
The fake conservative "shadow ban" is now coming into effect against their enemies. They do what they condemn in others.
blogabegonija
I have weird feeling their experiment block/unblock account tactics is somewhat profitable. While some users are closing their accounts, new ones engadges. while bad publicity is always somewhat reasonable.
spencerflem
More proof for anyone who needs it about the aims of the TikTok ban -
We want proud American censorship, not commie Chinese ones
brookst
I despise Facebook, but given a choice of US youth being indoctrinated by Facebook, by TikTok/CCP, or both… the choice is pretty clear. Sure, I’d like a “none of the above” option but that is not on the table. Wake me when it is.
olyjohn
That's not a choice. I can choose CenturyLink or Comcast, but neither actually gets me good internet at a reasonable price.
spencerflem
I'd like neither too, but at least it's nice to be able to pick instead of having the govt decide for me
add-sub-mul-div
Why is it clear that your life won't suffer more under domestic control than foreign control, other than reflexive jingoism? Domestic control has more direct levers and the gloves are off right now.
kerkeslager
Honestly, the choice is clear: the CCP is clearly not doing as much damage to our youth as our own companies are. Which is more important for U.S. youth to know about, Tienanmen Square or abortion, Winnie the Pooh or jury nullification? And that's just the censorship aspect of this; surveillance remains a bigger factor IMO. Which organization is more likely to be used by an American cop to track the ex-girlfriend they domestically abused: TikTok or Facebook?
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.
onetokeoverthe
none of the above is easy.
craigslist used to have free personals, and escort ads.
50208
There is a clear trajectory for Tik-Tok to be force sold to a Musk type who can bend it to conservative American disinformation, supposedly better than CCP disinformation?
AlexandrB
Cheerleading for the COVID/Biden era of social media moderation seems to have been predicated on the belief that the Democrats would always be in power. It was always just a matter of time before these systems were turned against those on the left.
ADeerAppeared
This is a hilarious claim given that none of the current action is going through the legislative path, and the tech billionaires freely bend the knee to Trump even before the inauguration.
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.
spencerflem
Unless you consider Biden leftist, they always have been. Even when he was around, you'd get muted for talking about Palestine.
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
ceejayoz
> 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.
spencerflem
^^ very true, shouldn't have called it that
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
josefritzishere
Political speech is supposed to have certain protections...
ceejayoz
Under what law?
They've every legal right to do this.
At this point Meta doesn't even worry about these news and specially right now that it is trying to please the current adminstration. Over the years I see it got a lot of bad press but they continue to grow their revenue. Investors are happy, nothing else matters probably for the company .