Meta and Google are accused in a new report of obstructing information on abortion and reproductive healthcare across Africa, Latin America and Asia.
MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes International) and the Center for Countering Digital Hate claim the platforms are restricting local abortion providers from advertising, but failing to tackle misinformation that undermines public access to reproductive healthcare.
Meta said it will review the report’s findings.
MSI, which provides contraception and abortion services in 37 countries, said its adverts containing information on sexual health, including cancer advice, had been rejected or deleted by the platform.
Phrases such as “pregnancy options” have been flagged as falling foul of Google community guidelines, MSI Ghana claims. MSI Vietnam said Facebook adverts promoting information about IUDs (intrauterine devices) and other contraceptive methods were removed.
Whitney Chinogwenya, MSI’s global marketing manager, said: “In Africa, Facebook is the go-to place for reproductive health information for many women. We have been scaling our digital operation to meet the demand but we’re struggling to get reliable information in front of the women who need it.
“We deal with everything from menopause to menstruation but we find that all our content is censored.”
She said Meta viewed reproductive health content through “an American lens”, applying socially conservative US values to posts published in countries with progressive policies such as South Africa, where abortion on request is legal in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.
MSI Mexico said its Facebook posts advertising legal abortion services have been deleted by the platform. Abortion was decriminalised in September and is available on request in Mexico City and 11 other states.
Chinogwenya said Meta is not doing enough to combat anti-abortion misinformation, accepting adverts from organisations that claim medical abortions lead to “fatal vaginal bleeding” or that upload gestational images of advanced pregnancies claiming they are from earlier foetal stages in an effort to stigmatise the procedure.