Meta now accused of banning abortion advice accounts after LGBTQ+ ‘censorship’

Social media conglomerate Meta has seemingly purged dozens of accounts belonging to queer organisations and abortion access providers, in what campaigners have condemned as one of the “biggest waves of censorship” in years.

As reported by The Guardian, more than 50 organisations worldwide have said their Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp accounts – platforms which all belong to Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta – have been subject to take downs.

The majority of these accounts appeared to belong to organisations in the UK and Europe, but groups in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East were also said to be impacted.

“Within this last year, especially since the new US presidency, we have seen a definite increase in accounts being taken down – not only in the US, but also worldwide as a ripple effect,” Martha Dimitratou, executive director of Repro Uncensored – an NGO which tracks the digital censorship of gender, health and justice movements – told The Guardian.

Dimitratou added: “This has been, to my knowledge, at least one of the biggest waves of censorship we are seeing.”

This is not the first time Meta has apparently removed inoffensive LGBTQ+ content.

Back in November 2024 several queer users and organisations reported their posts were being pulled from Meta’s various platforms, including Black Pride Western Australia and Out South West having promotional posts for LGBTQ+ counselling service QLife Australia removed.

Users were told their posts “shared or hosted malicious software” that “goes against Community Standards on cybersecurity”.

In January, Meta admitted the posts had been removed to a so-called “technical error”.

Just days after this admittance, Meta boss Zuckerberg announced a raft of changes to the company’s hate speech policy rules, including that the company will no longer moderate posts on topics such as immigration and gender which are “the subject of frequent political discourse and debate”, and replace their independent fact-checking programme with a community notes system – similar to that seen on Elon Musk’s platform X/Twitter.

Within the changes to the revised Meta hate speech guidelines, the update allowed users to refer to women as “household objects or property”, Black people as farm equipment, transgender or non-binary people as “it” and label LGBTQ+ people as ‘mentally ill’ just because they are LGBTQ+.

“We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality, and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird’,” the new rules read.

The changes courted near universal backlash, with the co-chair of Meta’s own Oversight Board – former prime minister of Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt – saying there were “huge problems” with the announcement: “We’re very concerned about gender rights, LGBTQ+ rights, trans people’s rights on the platforms because we are seeing many instances where hate speech can lead to real-life harm, so we will be watching that space very carefully.”

In a statement shared in regards to the current wave of removals, Meta denied that any particular movement or type of organisation was currently being targeted by restrictions.

“Every organisation and individual on our platforms is subject to the same set of rules, and any claims of enforcement based on group affiliation or advocacy are baseless,” a spokesperson for the social media firm said, adding that policies specifically regarding abortion-related content have not changed.