Big Tech Is Failing to Allow Accurate Abortion Information
By Erin Matson
When people press share on social media platforms, they expect their posts to go up. This is increasingly not the case for abortion access advocates and providers, who find our content suppressed by Big Tech platforms. To make matters worse, platforms are continuing to allow anti-abortion disinformation to flow on their sites.
It has now been more than one year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and in that time nearly half the states have banned abortion or severely restricted access. In this environment, I believe it is just as important to pay attention to Big Tech policies about the flow of information as it is to pay attention to the laws governing access to abortion care. Hear me out: Bodily autonomy is a human right, and securing bodily autonomy for all people requires ready access to quality abortion care. When abortion is as difficult to access as it has become, reliable information is critical to the exercise of our human rights.
For several years my organization, Reproaction, has been leading a grassroots campaign to get out the word about the World Health Organization’s protocol for self-managed abortion with pills. Self-managed abortion is when someone chooses to end their pregnancy outside of a medical setting, and data is conclusive that using abortion pills at home with the WHO protocol is safe and effective. We share this accurate information in a variety of formats, including in-person events, online events, and online. We’ve had Facebook quietly suppress our posts without giving us reason or opportunity for recourse.
We’re not alone in this regard. Recently, we conducted a survey of reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations, and found that it’s a sector-wide problem. The types of posts most likely to be removed include content that positively affirms abortion choices, general medical information, information about how or where to obtain abortion pills, guides about where to obtain abortion services, and posts that share the overwhelming data that abortion care is safe. We also found a nearly 50 percent increase in the number of organizations “very concerned” about abortion information suppression following the Dobbs decision.
One key issue is that abortion content is often errantly flagged as ‘political,’ subjecting it to special rules platforms have devised for political posts. This is misogyny at its worst, because while yes, there are politicians who are quite engaged on abortion, a person seeking accurate information about how their body works should not find themselves subject to what are in effect social media blackouts designed to rein in election denialism.
Against this backdrop, another problem looms. Anti-abortion disinformation containing intentional lies and distortions about abortion care and how it works continues to flourish online. Big Tech is an enabler. While it is annoying to organizations like ours to find our content suppressed as we watch anti-abortion leaders spout lies that appear to be clear violations of social media content policy, we must remember this content is dangerous. As we have seen too many times, inflammatory speech about abortion can fan the flames of White Christian Nationalist violence. Further, people seeking care may find themselves ensnared online by anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers presenting themselves as neutral providers of reproductive health care. Anti-abortion actors posing as legitimate professionals are especially frightening in an environment where people, especially marginalized people, rightfully fear being criminalized for abortion and miscarriage.
So what can be done? Transparency around algorithms is a good place to start, and we must remember that algorithms reflect priorities created by humans working for the platforms. I personally believe that education about how abortion pills work and are used would go a long way — because another thing that needs to happen is a recognition that abortion care doesn’t exclusively happen in brick-and-mortar medical facilities. This, then, could lead to better policies around posting of abortion pill related content and allow for abortion pill providers who operate exclusively online to get their services out to patients. Other solutions include having social media platforms flag misinformation and disinformation about abortion care, as it has done for other public health issues, such as COVID-19. It’s also time to tear down the brick walls we face when trying to ascertain why our posts have been removed — tech companies must provide transparency around their content moderation policies.
What’s happening online to quality abortion information is not great. It’s ridiculous. It’s time for Big Tech — a sector that often likes to posture itself as progressive — to step up.
Erin Matson is co-founder, president, and CEO of Reproaction, which leads bold action to increase access to abortion and advance reproductive justice.
