A new report found Meta and Google are restricting reproductive health information in Asia, Africa and Latin America. MSI Reproductive Choices and the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which partnered on the report, claim that the companies have restricted local abortion providers' ads and allowed misinformation to fester, among other misdoings. 

Take Mexico, which decriminalized abortion in 2023 but where services are not yet legal in all 32 of its states. Meta won't allow MSI to share abortion-related ad content in the country due to remaining bans. However, the local team reported that other sexual and reproductive health content has also received blocks. MSI's teams in Nepal and Vietnam echoed this issue, with Meta allegedly removing ads promoting cervical cancer screenings and information on IUDs and contraceptive pills, respectively. MSI now has a "blanket advertising ban" from Meta in the two countries and claims the company provided no clear justification. Ghana's team reported Google blocked their ads with the phrase "pregnancy options."

"Women and girls are being neglected by these major tech platforms who are putting their bottom lines above the public good," Whitney Chinogwenya, marketing specialist at MSI Reproductive Choices, said in a statement. "Accurate online information is a lifeline for those seeking timely care and facts about their reproductive options. Yet anti-choice groups are able to spread disinformation and toxic narratives online with impunity. And what is worse, platforms like Google and Meta are currently enabling, and profiting from this dangerous propaganda." 

MSI's teams in Ghana, Kenya and Nepal expressed difficulty connecting with Meta and receiving information on why their ads were limited — though Bangladesh's team was able to get in contact and resolve their issues. Kenya, Nigeria and Vietnam faced another problem: imitation Facebook pages and websites, sometimes with nothing different than a phone number. MSI requested that Meta and Google remove these scammers (some of which requested money from prospective clients) but claims the companies delayed action or took none. 

Researchers gathered evidence through correspondence and interviews with MSI's teams in locations such as Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, South Africa and Vietnam. Further information came from an analysis of Meta's Ad Library, which the report claims showed evidence of the company displaying and profiting from false or misleading anti-abortion ads in Ghana and Mexico. Users reportedly in these two countries viewed these ads up to one million times between 2019 and 2024. Approved ads included claims that "global powers and international companies" paid for decriminalizing abortion movements to "eliminate the Mexican population."

The report also looks at abuse directed at MSI's workers in Kenya, which the organization claimed Meta turns a "blind eye" towards. Ghana's team reported anti-choice organizations have used WhatsApp, a Meta-owned platform, to pedal conspiracies around family planning being a method to depopulate Africa and MSI's workers "introducing 'satanic' sexual education in schools to 'destroy the youth.'" 

The Center for Countering Digital Hate's CEO and founder, Imran Ahmed, accuses social media companies of mining "users' personal data in the Global South but take little care to protect local human rights and civil liberties. It reeks of colonialism — the greed, arrogance and double standards in how they treat less-wealthy markets. They have little regard or understanding of the complex cultural and political factors that can deprive people of their legal right to reproductive healthcare, nor do they grasp that the uneven application of their own content moderation policies greatly exacerbates these problems."

Meta is reviewing the findings, but spokesperson, Ryan Daniels told The Guardian: "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 Google spokesperson told the publication: "This report does not include a single example of policy-violating content on Google’s platform, nor any examples of inconsistent enforcement." Google then responded directly to the claim that it blocked ads with the term "pregnancy options" stating, "If the ads were restricted, it was likely due to our longstanding policies against targeting people based on sensitive health categories, which includes pregnancy."

Engadget has reached out to Meta and Google for further comment. 

In the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned, Google announced that it is making it easier to use its Maps and Search products to find medical providers that offer abortions. When someone searches for specific services and Google has confirmation that a location provides those services, it'll be clearly labeled in Search and Maps. For example, Google notes that it already does this when you search for EV charging stations or a specific COVID-19 vaccine brand, and now it'll do so for veterans hospitals and healthcare facilities that provide abortions. As you can see in the above image, searching for "abortion clinics near me" will bring up a list of locations that Google has confirmed provide abortion services.

While Google isn't coming right out and saying it, this seems to be an effort to avoid sending people who are searching for medical care to so-called "abortion crisis centers" or anti-abortion centers. For locations that Google doesn't have confirmation for, it'll instead say "might not provide abortions," which serves as a passive but still significant red flag for anyone looking for treatment. In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that anti-abortion centers couldn't be forced to acknowledge abortion as an option, something that outsources that work to private companies like Google. 

Earlier this week, Yelp announced it would take a similar but more definitive step by adding warning labels to anti-abortion centers; these warnings note that such facilities "may not have licensed medical professionals on site." Google says its update has been in the works for months, but it comes at a time where employees have said the company needs to do more to project both users and its contract workers in a post-Roe world.

The fact that Google is getting confirmation from centers that provide abortions should make both Search and Maps results more useful. A Google spokesperson said that "we get confirmation that places provide a particular service in a number of ways, including regularly calling businesses directly and working with authoritative data sources." So users should be able to trust that medical centers that are labeled as providing abortions do in fact offer the service. Google is also making it easy to expand your search if you don't find relevant results nearby with a "search farther away" prompt, another tool that can help people looking for abortion services where clinics are rare. 

Google says these changes will start rolling out today, though they won't immediately be visible to all Google users until a bit later.

Facebook parent company Meta says it by mistake recently removed a Planned Parenthood of Michigan post that included information on where to obtain abortion medication. “A medication abortion is a nonsurgical option for ending a pregnancy in the first trimester. Approved by the FDA for use up to roughly 10 weeks of pregnancy, these medications are highly effective with little risk of serious side effects,” the post said, according to Motherboard (via The Verge), with a link to a website outlining a list of providers.

An alert shared by Planned Parenthood of Michigan spokesperson Ashlea Phenicie said the post was restricted for violating Facebook’s guidelines. “The Community Standards apply to the world, and help keep Facebook safe and welcoming for everyone,” the notification stated.

Abortion is legal in Michigan. The removal occured after Meta admitted in June to “incorrect” moderation of posts about abortion pills. In the days after the Supreme Court’s June 24th decision to overturn Roe v. Wade,Motherboard found that the company had been flagging posts that said “abortion can be mailed.” According to Meta’s Community Standards, content discussing the affordability of prescription medication is allowed on Facebook, but users cannot use the platform to buy, sell, trade, gift, request or donate pharmaceuticals.

Starting today, Yelp will apply a label to business pages for crisis pregnancy centers (also known as anti-abortion centers) to clarify that these facilities usually have limited medical services. The label also notes that crisis pregnancy centers "may not have licensed medical professionals onsite." The consumer notice could help people avoid confusion with clinics that offer abortion services.

In a blog post, Yelp said it was making the change following the US Supreme Court's decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade, a ruling that conferred a nationwide right to safe abortion access for nearly 50 years. "The trust and safety of our community is a top priority, which is why providing consumers with reliable and useful information to help inform their decisions is critical to our mission — this includes access to reliable information about reproductive health services," Yelp wrote.

Yelp

Many crisis pregnancy centers have religious affiliations, as the Associated Presspreviously reported. Some are said to provide misleading information about abortion and contraception.

Yelp has reviewed tens of thousands of business listings since 2018 with the aim of ensuring crisis pregnancy centers are differentiated from abortion clinics. It noted that moderators have reclassified almost 470 businesses as crisis pregnancy centers or faith-based crisis pregnancy centers this year alone in the US, after reviewing nearly 33,500 business pages. It plans to review more than 55,000 business pages across the US, Canada and Puerto Rico in the coming months.

This is an issue that other tech companies have been contending with. Last week, the Alphabet Workers Union demanded that Google address "misleading search results related to abortion services by removing results for fake abortion providers." Democratic lawmakers have asked Google to stop directing people seeking an abortion to anti-abortion facilities, while some Republican attorneys general warned the company not to limit such centers from appearing in search results. In early July, Google said it would delete abortion clinic visits from user location histories.

Last week, more than 400 TV showrunners, writers and producers called on streaming giants and traditional Hollywood studios to offer improved protections for workers in states where abortions are banned or limited. Now, 594 other industry figures (many, if not all of whom are male) have pledged their support, as Variety reports. They include Jordan Peele, Taika Waititi, Jason Sudekis, Ryan Murphy, Donald Glover and JJ Abrams.

The signatories said they were standing in solidarity with their “female, trans and non-binary showrunner colleagues [...] in demanding a coordinated and timely response from our employers regarding the imminent workplace-safety crisis created by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Abortion access doesn’t only affect people who can become pregnant. It affects us all."

In late June, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that conferred a nationwide right to abortion for almost half a century. Numerous states banned or severely restricted abortion access after the decision.

The initial letter was signed by the likes of Issa Rae, Lilly Wachowski, Lena Waithe, Amy Schumer, Shonda Rhimes, Mindy Kaling and Ava DuVernay. It was sent to Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, Apple, NBC Universal, Amazon, Lionsgate and AMC.

The more than 1,000 industry figures who sent the letters are calling for details about studios' abortion travel subsidies, care policies for “ectopic pregnancies and other pregnancy complications” that occur during a production and legal safeguards for those who help a production worker get an abortion. The signatories also demanded that studios “discontinue all political donations to anti-abortion candidates and political action committees immediately.”

Those who signed the letters want the studios to respond by August 10th. The letters did not detail what may happen if the companies don't reply by then. Studios have previously said they would reimburse travel expenses for those who had to leave a state to get an abortion.

Thanks to its generous tax incentives for film and TV productions, Georgia has become a powerhouse in the entertainment industry, which is worth billions of dollars to the local economy. In 2019, several studios, including Netflix, said they'd reconsider setting up projects in the state if a so-called heartbeat law came into effect (the legislation bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected). A federal appeals court allowed the law to take effect last month.

A group of 411 TV showrunners, creators and writers sent letters to executives at streaming platforms and other major Hollywood companies to demand better protections for workers in anti-abortion states. "We have grave concerns about the lack of specific production protocols in place to protect those at work for Netflix in anti-abortion states," they wrote in a letter to Netflix. “It is unacceptable to ask any person to choose between their human rights and their employment.” 

Similar letters, which were first reported on by Variety, were addressed to the likes of Apple, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBC Universal, Paramount, Lionsgate, Amazon and AMC. The signatories include well-known creators, such as Issa Rae, Lilly Wachowski, Lena Waithe, Amy Schumer, Shonda Rhimes, Mindy Kaling, Ava DuVernay and Lena Dunham. They're demanding specific safety measures for people working on productions in states that have banned abortion after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month.

The group has demanded that the companies respond with details on their abortion safety plans within 10 days. Among other things, the writers want information on abortion travel subsidies, medical care for pregnancy complications (including ectopic pregnancies) and legal protections for workers who uphold a studio's abortion policies or help someone else obtain an abortion. They also implored the companies to immediately halt “all political donations to anti-abortion candidates and political action committees."

A Bloomberg report this week noted that studios are spending billions on productions in states that have banned or restricted abortions, though many were already filming before the Supreme Court decision in late June. Georgia, for instance, offers generous tax credits to productions, which has helped the state become a TV and film powerhouse. Last week, a law came into effect in the state. It essentially banned most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, which is before many people know whether they're pregnant.

Seventeen Republican attorneys general have urged Google not to limit the appearance of anti-abortion centers in search results. They made the demand a month after Democratic lawmakers asked the company to refrain from directing people who are looking up information on pregnancy terminations to such centers. The Republican AGs suggested that if Google obliges the request from the other side of the aisle, they may investigate the company and undertake legal action. "If you fail to resist this political pressure, we will act swiftly to protect American consumers from this dangerous axis of corporate and government power," they wrote in a letter to Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.

Many of the so-called crisis pregnancy centers in question have religious affiliations, as the Associated Press notes. Some centers have been accused of providing misleading information about abortion and contraception. Following a leak of a draft opinion suggesting that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, a ruling that ensured the right to abortion nationwide (a move that the court took in late June), Democrats in the House and Senate introduced a bill that seeks to "crack down on false advertising that crisis pregnancy centers employ to dissuade patients from getting the reproductive care they need, including abortion care."

"Directing women towards fake clinics that traffic in misinformation and don't provide comprehensive health services is dangerous to women's health and undermines the integrity of Google's search results," the Democratic lawmakers wrote in their June 17th letter. They cited statistics indicating that a tenth of Google searches for terms like "abortion clinics near me" and "abortion pill" included results for anti-abortion centers.

The Republican AGs took issue with the Democrats' missive. They noted that crisis pregnancy centers often provide services like free ultrasounds, pregnancy tests, sexually transmitted disease testing and parenting classes. "These pregnancy centers serve women, no matter who they are or what they believe," they wrote. "These attacks threaten not only those affiliated with the centers, but also the mothers in desperate need of the assistance the centers provide."

The AGs noted Planned Parenthood has acknowledged that crisis pregnancy centers "have religious missions" and “are faith-based organizations that oppose abortion." They claimed ceding to the Democrats' request would "[reek] of religious discrimination."

They went on to state that if Google complies with "this inappropriate demand to bias your search results against crisis pregnancy centers," their offices would investigate the company for possible violations of antitrust and religious discrimination laws. The AGs would also "consider whether additional legislation — such as nondiscrimination rules under common carriage statutes — is necessary to protect consumers and markets." They gave Google 14 days to respond.

Engadget has contacted Google for comment. Google previously said it will delete abortion clinic visits from users' location histories. Meanwhile, YouTube today started removing videos with unsafe instructions on how to self-administer an abortion.

If you post about being able to mail abortion pills to those who need it on Facebook, don't be surprised if you get a warning — or even get your account restricted. A tipster told Motherboard that they were notified a minute after posting "I will mail abortion pills to any one of you" that their status update had been removed. When they tried to post about it again later, they were banned for it. Motherboard was able to replicate the scenario, and we were able to confirm it, as well. We tried posting "abortion pills can be mailed" on Facebook and were quickly notified that we violated the website's Community Standards.

Facebook

In the next slide explaining our infraction, Facebook said doesn't allow users to buy, sell or exchange things such as tobacco, marijuana, recreational drugs and non-medical drugs. To test it out, we posted "I'm selling cigarettes," "cigarettes can be mailed," "anti-depressants can be mailed" and "painkiller pills can be mailed." None of them got flagged. General posts such as "abortion is healthcare" didn't get flagged either. As for our post that did get flagged, we were asked if we would like to accept Facebook's enforcement action or not. After choosing to accept it, our post got removed but we didn't get banned. According to Motherboard, their account got restricted for 24 hours after making several posts that got flagged.

It's unclear when the website started removing posts about mailing out abortion pills and whether it only began after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court's decision made all types of abortion illegal in several states with trigger laws, but people in those states can still get abortion pills shipped to them from international groups like Aid Access. Facebook could be preventing that information from getting to some people who need it, though, especially since it flags posts with "mail" and "abortion pills" even for international users. We posted from outside the US and still got a warning. "Some items aren't regulated everywhere," the slide explaining our violation reads, "but because Facebook is borderless we have global standards that apply to everyone."

The New York Times also recently reported that Facebook's parent company, Meta, told employees not to discuss the Supreme Court ruling within the workplace. Moderators would reportedly swoop in and quickly remove posts about abortion in the company's internal Workplace platform. Meta did, however, tell employees that it would reimburse them for travel expenses if they need to access out-of-state healthcare and reproductive services "to the extent permitted by law."

A group of Democratic lawmakers led by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Rep. Elissa Slotkin is urging Google to "crack down on manipulative search results" that lead people seeking abortions to anti-abortion clinics. In a letter addressed to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, the lawmakers reference a study conducted by US nonprofit group Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). The organization found that 1 in 10 Google search results for queries such as "abortion clinics near me" and "abortion pill" — specifically in states with trigger laws that would ban the procedure the moment Roe v. Wade is overturned — points to crisis pregnancy centers that oppose abortion instead.

"Directing women towards fake clinics that traffic in misinformation and don't provide comprehensive health services is dangerous to women's health and undermines the integrity of Google's search results," the lawmakers wrote. CCDH also found that 37 percent of results on Google Maps for the same search terms lead people to anti-abortion clinics. The lawmakers argue in the letter that Google should not be displaying those results for users searching for abortion and that if the company's search results must continue showing them, they should at least be properly labeled.

In addition, CCDH found that 28 percent of ads displayed at the top of Google search results are for crisis pregnancy centers. Google added a disclaimer for those ads, "albeit one that appears in small font and is easily missed," the lawmakers note, after getting flak for them a few years ago. "The prevalence of these misleading ads marks what appears to be a concerning reversal from Google’s pledge in 2014 to take down ads from crisis pregnancy centers that engage in overt deception of women seeking out abortion information online," the letter reads.

Warner, Slotkin and the letter's other signees are asking Google what it plans to do to limit the appearance of anti-abortion clinics when users are explicitly searching for abortion services. And, if Google chooses not to take action to prevent them from appearing in results, the group is asking whether Google would add user-friendly disclaimers clarifying whether the clinic is or isn't providing abortion services. You can read the whole letter below:

A Supreme Court draft obtained by Politico in May showed that SCOTUS justices have voted to reverse Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that protected the federal rights to abortion across the country. Senator Ron Wyden and 41 other Democratic lawmakers also previously asked Google to stop collecting and keeping users' location data. They said the information could be used against people who've had or are seeking abortions in states with trigger laws.