Groups helping Americans find abortion pills report Instagram ‘shadow-banning'

The Guardian

29-01-2025

Over the last week, the accounts of some major organizations that help Americans find abortion pills had their Instagram posts censored, were removed or became difficult to find through searching – a practice known as 'shadow-banning'.
Censorship of abortion-related content on social media is a longstanding issue. In the days and weeks after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June 2022, several abortion rights groups had their Instagram and TikTok posts removed or accounts suspended, while Instagram and Facebook deleted the posts of users who mentioned abortion pills.
But the recent erasure and submerging of abortion-related content, so soon after Donald Trump's return to power, has caused fear among some abortion rights supporters that a bigger crackdown could be on the horizon – and concerns that Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg's promise to protect 'free expression' may not apply to all speech.
'There's been this narrative of first amendment rights and free speech and we hope that that applies to all forms of speech,' said Rebecca Davis, head of marketing at Hey Jane, a telehealth clinic that provides abortion pills, emergency contraception and birth control.
Since last week, an Instagram search for the words 'hey jane' will not surface the organization's account. Instead, users can only find it if they type in the word 'hey jane health' – the account's full name. This, Davis said, constitutes a shadow ban.
'For someone who's not following us but is seeking out care, there's really no way for them to be able to know that the only way to find us is to type 'hey jane health',' Davis said.
'It really does limit people's ability to find accurate information when they're seeking out this very timely, essential healthcare.'
On Friday, Instagram removed a Hey Jane post entitled '5 Abortion Facts You Need to Know in 2025', alleging: 'The post may buy, sell, or exchange drugs that require a prescription from a doctor or pharmacist,' in violation of the platform's community guidelines. However, Hey Jane has been verified by LegitScript, which certifies online pharmacies. Meta allows LegitScript-certified entities to run prescription drug ads.
The New York Times, which reported on the changes to abortion-related content and accounts on Friday morning, said that two other organizations that help women access abortion pills, Just the Pill and Women Help Women, had their accounts restored.
But, at least by Friday evening, the Women Help Women account was unavailable and was not restored until late on Monday night, according to a screenshot viewed by the Guardian.
Jessica Valenti, author of a popular newsletter that tracks developments in abortion rights and restrictions, flagged last week that multiple posts from the organization Aid Access, which mails abortion pills, were blurred out. As of Tuesday, at least two pinned posts on the account remained partially obscured; while the captions were available, the images were blurred or removed entirely. In a post last week, the group said that its account had recently been suspended for more than a week.
A spokesperson for Meta did not immediately respond to a list of questions from the Guardian, but told the Times that some of the incidents were the result of 'over-enforcement'.
'Throughout the years, the process of getting the accounts back or just communicating with big tech has been harder,' said Martha Dimitratou, digital strategist for the group Plan C, which provides information about abortion pills. Medical experts widely agree that, in the first trimester of pregnancy, it is safe to 'self-manage' your own abortion using pills.
Plan C's Instagram account, Dimitratou estimated, has been taken down 'six, seven times at least'. 'There's not at all institutional memory or understanding that this is something that keeps happening to this account,' she said.
'Every time we have a new instance of censorship, we have to prove that we are a non-profit. We have to go again from square one.'
Abortion-related content is often taken down when the procedure is in the headlines, said Jane Eklund, lead researcher with Repro Uncensored, a coalition that works to protect access to information about abortion. The organizations that post the content are frequently told they are violating platforms' regulations around selling or providing goods online – even when their accounts have nothing to do with selling or providing abortion pills, according to Eklund, who worked on a 2024 Amnesty International report about the removal of online info about abortion.
'So many organizations are left in the dark. They would do what they need to do to avoid having their content taken down if they actually knew what that is,' Eklund continued.
'They just don't really have that transparency from the platform.'