Meta and Google accused of restricting reproductive health information | Global development

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Meta and

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accused of restricting reproductive health information | Global development

Meta and

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are accused in a new report of obstructing information on ********* and reproductive healthcare across *******, ****** America and Asia.

MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes International) and the Center for Countering Digital Hate claim the platforms are restricting local ********* 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 ********* services in 37 countries, said its adverts containing information on ******* health, including ******* advice, had been rejected or deleted by the platform.

Phrases such as “pregnancy options” have been flagged as falling foul of

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community guidelines, MSI Ghana claims. MSI Vietnam said

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adverts promoting information about IUDs (intrauterine devices) and other contraceptive methods were removed.

Whitney Chinogwenya, MSI’s global marketing manager, said: “In *******,

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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 ********* lens”, applying socially ************* US values to posts published in countries with progressive policies such as South *******, where ********* on request is legal in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.

MSI Mexico said its

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posts advertising legal ********* services have been deleted by the platform. ********* 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-********* misinformation, accepting adverts from organisations that claim medical abortions lead to “fatal ******** bleeding” or that upload gestational images of advanced pregnancies claiming they are from earlier foetal stages in an effort to stigmatise the procedure.

MSI Reproductive Choices claim its

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posts on ******* health are regularly censored or deleted by the platform. Photograph:

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/MSI Reproductive

The report, published on Wednesday, identified fake MSI pages on

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, including five in Kenya.

MSI said it tried to request that Meta delete the pages, but struggled to reach a representative of the company.

“Some of the pages belong to informal ********* providers who want to piggyback off MSI’s reputations,” Chinogwenya said. “Others will belong to pregnancy crisis centres, which pose as ********* clinics to discourage and prevent women from terminating their pregnancy. But there are also many scammers. Women often come to our clinics after being sold anything from aspirin to laxatives by online scammers.”

The report said MSI clinics in Ghana were being targeted by a disinformation campaign on the Meta-owned messaging platform WhatsApp.

“Putting a factchecking system in place for reproductive health information and services is one of the best things Meta could do,” said Esi Asare Prah, the advocacy and donor relations manager at MSI Ghana, where ********* is allowed in limited circumstances. She hopes the report will make digital platforms conscious of their responsibilities towards users in the global south. “Whether it’s content promoting health misinformation or directing women and ****** towards unsafe services, there are real users being disadvantaged in the end,” she said.

The report was compiled through correspondence and interviews with MSI’s local teams in Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria and Vietnam, and evidence collected from Meta’s Ad Library.

A Meta spokesperson, Ryan Daniels, said: “We allow posts and ads promoting healthcare services, as well as discussion and debate around them. Content about reproductive health must follow our rules, including those on prescription drugs and misinformation, and ads promoting reproductive health products or services may only be targeted to people 18-plus.

“We prohibit ads that include misinformation or mislead people about services a business provides, and we will review the content of this report.”

A

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spokesperson said: “This report does not include a single example of policy-violating content on

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’s platform, nor any examples of inconsistent enforcement.”

The spokesperson said adverts that reference “pregnancy options” are not prohibited from running in Ghana. “If the ads were restricted, it was likely due to our longstanding policies against targeting people based on sensitive health categories, which includes pregnancy.”

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#Meta #

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#accused #restricting #reproductive #health #information #Global #development

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