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Google, Meta, others accused of blocking health content

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Algorithms fail to differentiate between content

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Concerns amid rollback of diversity, rights policies

By Lin Taylor

LONDON, March 18 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Tech

giants Amazon ( AMZN ), Google, TikTok and Meta are suppressing women's

health content on their platforms, charities and businesses say,

worried the erasure is entrenching a rollback of diversity

policies and reproductive rights.

From women's health start-ups to reproductive healthcare

groups, many say their social media posts are being censored,

online paid advertisements rejected and digital accounts

suspended.

"We're not saying that online safety does not matter," said

Clio Wood, co-founder of UK-based group CensHERship which

launched a campaign last week urging the European Commission to

probe the online suppression.

"What we are saying is there is an issue, because the

algorithms don't distinguish between explicit content and

legitimate women's health educational content. It might be

talking about the same body part, but it's doing it in very

different ways," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

'DANGEROUS PLACE TO BE'

Content with words like abortion, breast and vagina or

that deals with menstrual or sexual health was more likely to be

flagged as sexually explicit and removed, according to a recent

report by U.S. advocacy group Center for Intimacy Justice.

In a global survey of nearly 160 women's health

businesses and charities, more than 60% had posts removed by

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and more than a third

had their accounts suspended on Amazon ( AMZN ).

More than half of the respondents, which included menopausal

health businesses or sexual education groups, had content

removed by TikTok, and nearly 70% had advertisements rejected by

Google, the February report said.

In comparison, posts and advertisements using sexual

innuendo and explicit images to promote men's sexual health

products were allowed across the platforms, the report added.

Tess Cosad, co-founder of Bea Fertility, said her

at-home insemination product business was blocked from using the

word vagina in an Amazon ( AMZN ) showcase page but was able to include

semen.

An Amazon ( AMZN ) spokesperson said in emailed comments the company

encouraged sellers to contact the support team if they believed

an error in classification had occurred and it has a "robust

appeals process in place."

Cosad said she toyed with the idea of using "birth canal"

instead but eventually left Amazon ( AMZN ) altogether.

"We have to be able to use medical terminology," she said.

"If we have words we're not allowed to use, that's erasure. The

workarounds are so loaded but that's the beginnings of the true

censorship. That's the beginning of a very dangerous place to

be."

RIGHTS ROLLBACK

The report comes at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump

is terminating diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives

throughout federal government, and major global companies,

including Meta and Amazon ( AMZN ), wind down their own programmes.

Trump in January also restored U.S. participation in two

international anti-abortion pacts, including one that cuts off

U.S. family planning funds for foreign organisations that

provide abortion services.

The United Nations earlier this month warned that "women's

bodies have become political battlegrounds," and rights

advocates fear further setbacks.

Mikayla Dawson, a senior social media strategist at the

U.S-based Physicians for Reproductive Health, said her group's

visibility on Facebook and Instagram has dropped significantly

since the start of the year.

"It's well-known in social media that Meta prides itself on

being a 'family-friendly' platform and has used this framework

to justify suppressing content they deem political," Dawson said

in emailed comments.

Meta did not respond to requests for comment.

"If anti-science sentiments and outright lies get more

support from Big Tech than our content, it will have a

potentially dangerous impact on people's real lives," Dawson

said.

Search engine giant Google was criticised in 2022 when

people seeking abortions were instead directed to "crisis

pregnancy centres," which steer woman away from the procedure.

Plan C, a group which explains how people can access

abortion pills in the United States, said it has been banned

from advertising on Google for years and its accounts on Meta

and video-sharing platform TikTok are regularly taken down.

"Suppressions keep happening to us so we have to go through

lengthy appeals again and again," said the group's digital

strategist Martha Dimitratou in a phone interview.

In a statement, Google said it encouraged groups to appeal

if they disagree with rejections of their paid ads.

"We have long allowed ads for a variety of sexual health

products and services, and recently updated our policies to

allow for even more products," it said.

TikTok said its community guidelines applied to "everyone

and everything," and content creators are able to appeal

decisions.

ALTERNATE WORDS?

Campaigners say community moderators and algorithms are not

trained in the nuances of women's health, often leading people

to use alternate words, which can perpetuate stigma.

Fatma Ibrahim, founder of The Sex Talk Arabic, which raises

awareness on gender violence in the Arab world, said its

Facebook and Instagram content is intentionally "radical" to

break taboos, but can often lead to critics reporting them to

moderators, resulting in suspensions and censorship of posts.

"Online is the only space where we can do such work. We use

social media platforms because we want to normalise the talk

around these things," she said in a video interview.

Dutch charity Neighborhood Feminists, which helps people who

cannot afford menstrual products, said it noticed a drop in

online engagement over the past year on Instagram and believes

it was due to the direct way it describes menstruation.

"We refuse to move towards using euphemisms because that

completely reinforces the shame and the stigma that we're

pushing back against," said co-founder Tammy Sheldon.

(Reporting by Lin Taylor, Editing by Clar Ni Chonghaile and

Ayla Jean Yackley. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation,

the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. Visit https://www.context.news/)