Women's Health Content on Social Media: A Shadowbanned Issue?
BBC News explores the concern of "shadowbanning" women's health content on social media platforms, particularly Instagram and Facebook owned by Meta.
The Case of Irene Breen's Pregnancy Pillows
Irene Breen shared her experience with BBC News. In January 2025, her business, Bella Moon, faced a surprise when Instagram removed ads for their pregnancy pillows. The issue? The word "pregnancy."
"We had to scrub the word from our entire website… from the product name," Breen explained. "We had to remove all our URLs which had pregnancy in them and rename them all."
It took 10 months of negotiations with Meta to resolve the issue, during which Breen's business suffered significant financial losses.
Meta's Perspective
Meta stated that while they allow businesses to advertise wellness, sexual health, and reproductive products and services, they implement restrictions to prevent users from having negative experiences across diverse cultures and countries.
Beyond Paid Ads: Unfair Restrictions on Women's Health Creators
The problem isn't limited to paid ads. Women's health creators, charities, and educators have reported restrictions on their content, including:
- Removal of posts: Content related to women's health, often educational or informational, gets removed without warning.
- Sensitivity filters: Posts requiring users to click to view due to potential sensitivity, often for graphic content, but sometimes for legitimate health discussions.
- Suppressed reach: A practice known as "shadowbanning" where content barely appears in users' feeds, making it hard to gain traction.
The Impact
Dr. Carolina Are, a digital criminologist at the London School of Economics, highlights the potential for AI algorithms to misdetect content, leading to automated filtering and subsequent user inability to question the decisions.
Athena Lamnisos, CEO of Eve Appeal, a gynaecological cancer charity, shared an instance where a post about vulval cancer, clearly labeled as an anatomical diagram, was pulled and then reappeared behind a sensitivity filter after an appeal.
Deirdre O'Neill, from Hertility, a fertility test company, described a similar issue with a video about endometriosis.
The Concern
The collective concern is that "life-saving health information" is not reaching those who need it most due to these restrictions. Navigating these platforms to share health information feels like an "obstacle course," according to Lamnisos.
Conclusion
The practice of shadowbanning women's health content raises critical questions about the balance between online safety and freedom of information. As platforms continue to evolve their moderation practices, ensuring accessibility to essential health information remains paramount.