Facebook, Instagram Flagging Posts That Mention Abortion Pills: Report

Meta-owned Facebook and popular photo-sharing platform Instagram have started removing posts and banning people who say that would mail abortion pills as it "violates" their Community Standards.

Posts with "abortion pills can be mailed" are being flagged within seconds. Image: Getty

Social networking giant Facebook and popular photo-sharing platform Instagram have started removing posts and banning people who say that would mail abortion pills as it "violates" their Community Standards in the wake of the recent US Supreme Court ruling that made all types of abortion illegal. According to a report by Motherboard, the publication and a Facebook user faced consequences for posting about mailing abortion pills on the social networking platform on the same day the Supreme Court ruling came.

“I will mail abortion pills to any one of you. Just message me,” said a message written by one person who was later banned. The person was quoted ass saying by the publication in an email: “I posted it at 11 a.m. and was notified within a minute that it was removed. I was not notified until I tried to post later that I was banned for it.”

To verify, a Motherboard journalist tried to post the phrase "abortion pills can be mailed" on Facebook via a burner account, but their post was flagged within seconds and was said to be "violating" Facebook's community standards.

Earlier last week, the US Supreme Court, in a big decision abolished the Right to Abortion after nearly fifty years. Under this law, American women had the right to make their own decision whether to have an abortion or not.  However, the apex court has now overturned a nearly 50-year-old landmark 1973 "Roe v Wade" ruling that guaranteed a woman's right to an abortion, saying that individual states could now allow or restrict the procedure themselves. 

The court's decision came in the decisive case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, in which Mississippi's last abortion clinic opposed the state's efforts to ban abortion after 15 weeks and reverse Row in the process.