San Francisco: US Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) have sent a letter to Facebook and Instagram, calling them to address their reported censorship of posts related to abortion services following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs. Wade case last month.
Both Facebook and Instagram reportedly removed numerous users’ posts about abortion services.
Reports show that many posts providing information about access to legal abortion services were removed from the platforms, often minutes after they were posted, and other posts mentioning abortion were taken down or tagged with “sensitivity screens” and warnings, the senators said in the letter addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The senators are asking Facebook and Instagram to provide answers to a set of questions about their content-moderation policies and statistics about abortion-related posts by July 15.
“As a result of the Court’s decision, it is more important than ever that social media platforms not censor truthful posts about abortion, particularly as people across the country turn to online communities to discuss and find information about reproductive rights,” the senators wrote.
As the right to abortion and basic health care is under attack by the Supreme Court and Republican extremists across the country, Senator Warren has worked to protect the right to an abortion and protect the sensitive data of all Americans.
On July 7, Warren announced two key data brokers’ commitments to permanently stop selling the location data of people seeking abortion services.
Facebook and Instagram earlier removed posts from users who offered abortion pills via mail posts.
Facebook removed such posts, and also temporarily banned some of those users, on the same day when the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade case.