Meta, TikTok, Amazon and Google accused of censoring women’s health brands
Photo by Dave Adamson on Unsplash
A slew of women’s health brands have accused Big Tech of suppressing adverts containing sexual and reproductive health information for women and people of diverse genders.
Meta, TikTok, Amazon and Google are all in the firing line, with one study finding that ‘Big Tech platforms are fostering an exclusionary digital environment for sexual and reproductive health information and products’.
What have researchers found?
The Digital Gag — an investigation by the Centre for Intimacy Justice — is the most comprehensive and publicly available of its kind. It analyses survey responses and qualitative interviews from non-profit organisations, content creators/sex educators and businesses.
Of the sexual and reproductive health groups studied, the results are as follows:
Meta
63% had organic content removed
84% of businesses and 76% of non-profits had ads rejected
TikTok
55% had organic content removed
48% had ads rejected
66% had ads rejected
58% had ads restricted or age-gated
Amazon
64% had product listings removed
34% had accounts suspended
An example of an ad rejected by Meta includes one by Marie Stopes Ghana, an organisation which provides contraception, reproductive health, and family planning services across the country. The ad reads:
FREE BREAST CANCER SCREENING AND COUNSELING
Did you know? In 2018 according to the WHO, 627000 women died of breast cancer.
Breast Cancer Screening Saves Lives. Take a screening today!
Mauj, a sexual and menstrual health platform for Arab women, had an ad rejected which was promoting a guide to recognising sexual coercion.
Conversely, Meta approved an erectile dysfunction ad by men’s wellness brand hims which included the slogan: Get hard or your money back.
Meta also had no problem with Manual’s ‘STRONGER RELIABLE ERECTIONS’ ad.
CensHERship's call for change
These findings support research from the UK’s CensHERship campaign which launched an open call for experiences of the censorship of women’s health and sexual wellbeing content earlier this year. After gathering 115 responses from brands, creators, medical professionals, charities, consumers and health & wellbeing professionals, CensHERship found that:
95% of respondents have experienced censorship
nearly four in 10 have experienced it 10+ times over the past 12 months
nine in 10 had issues on Instagram
52% had issues on Facebook
Nearly a third (32%) had issues on TikTok
15% had issues on YouTube
11% had issues on LinkedIn
Have social media platforms responded?
With mounting accusations of censorship being aimed in their direction, have any of the social media platforms under fire actually responded? In 2023, following protests for language around women’s bodies to be normalised, Meta rejected accusations of censorship of language around the female body.
It said some adverts for a Bodyform campaign aimed at normalising the use of words such as vagina, clitoris and vulva online had been removed by mistake, apologising for any confusion. Meta also said that there’s no blanket ban on these types of words, but that adverts are governed by a stricter set of policies “because they receive paid distribution to appear in people’s feeds”.
More recently, an Independent article quotes a Meta spokesperson as saying that the company’s policies have “always prohibited advertisers from sharing sensitive information”. Responding to claims from brands like BellaMoon and Hertility who say their posts and adverts are being blocked, Meta said that these prohibitive measures “did not block these organisations from running ads”.
But what about the other platforms? Well, TikTok has stated that its community guidelines applied to "everyone and everything", and content creators are able to appeal decisions.
Amazon spokesperson, Juliana Karber, is quoted in this WIRED piece about the retailer restricting vaginal health products. According to the article, Karber stated that ‘Amazon understands the importance of sexual health and wellness products to its customers and has thousands of merchants offering them. The small fraction of those products categorized as “adult” are subject to additional policies “to best ensure we serve them to intending customers and not surprise customers who are not looking for them”’.
Unfortunately the evidence doesn’t support these reassurances. And if precedent is anything to go by, it’s a case of when, not if, accusations of online censorship will be aimed at Big Tech in the months and years to come.