(Washington) Facebook and Instagram have begun rapidly removing posts offering abortion pills to women who may not be able to access them following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down constitutional rights to the procedure.
Posted yesterday at 11:02 p.m.
Against the backdrop of the High Court overturning Roe v Wade, a 1973 decision which declared access to abortion a constitutional right, social media posts have sprung up. They are apparently aimed at helping women living in states where pre-existing laws banning abortion suddenly went into effect on Friday.
Memes and posts explaining how women could legally get abortion pills in the mail have exploded on social media platforms. Some have even offered to send prescriptions to women living in states that now ban the procedure.
Almost immediately, Facebook and Instagram began deleting some of these posts, just as millions of people across the United States sought to clarify access to abortion.
General mentions of abortion pills, as well as posts referring to specific variants such as mifepristone and misoprostol, surged Friday morning across Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and TV shows, according to analysis by the intelligence firm. Zignal Labs media.
As of Sunday, Zignal Labs had counted more than 250,000 such mentions.
Issues with applying a policy
The Associated Press (AP) obtained a screenshot of an Instagram post by a woman on Friday offering to buy or mail abortion pills, minutes after the court ruled to revoke the constitutional right to abortion.
“(Direct message me) if you want to order abortion pills, but want them sent to my address instead of yours,” reads Instagram.
Instagram deleted it within moments. Vice Media first reported on Monday that Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was removing posts about abortion pills.
On Monday, an AP reporter tested the company’s response with a similar post on Facebook, writing, “If you send me your address, I’ll send you abortion pills.” The post was deleted within a minute.
The Facebook account was immediately put on a “warning” status for the post, which Facebook said violated its standards on “guns, animals and other regulated property”.
Yet when the AP reporter made the exact same message, but replaced the words “abortion pills” with “a gun,” the message remained intact. A message containing the exact same offer to send “cannabis” was also left and was not considered a violation.
Marijuana is illegal under federal law and it is illegal to mail it.
However, abortion pills can legally be obtained through the mail after online consultation with prescribers who have undergone certification and training.
In an email, a Meta spokesperson pointed to company policies that prohibit the sale of certain items, including firearms, alcohol, drugs and pharmaceuticals. The company has not explained the apparent deviations in its application of this policy.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed in a tweet on Monday that the company will not allow individuals to offer or sell pharmaceuticals on its platform, but will allow content that shares information about how to access the pills. Mr. Stone acknowledged some issues with the enforcement of this policy on his platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
“We have discovered instances of incorrect application and are correcting them,” Stone said in a tweet.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Friday that states should not ban mifepristone, the drug used to induce abortion.
“States cannot ban mifepristone due to disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment on its safety and efficacy,” Garland said in a statement Friday.
But some Republicans have already tried to prevent their residents from getting abortion pills in the mail, some states, like West Virginia and Tennessee, prohibit professionals from prescribing the drug through telemedicine consultation.