Facebook inconsistently enforces its rule against the purchase or sale of tobacco, marijuana, and medical and non-medical drugs regarding abortion pills. motherboard recently reported that the website has flagged “abortion mailable” messages and even temporarily restricted some accounts. Engadget was able to independently verify the information. Social media companies last week in Roe v. While Wade began to deal with the content about the outcome of his decision, Meta accepted ‘misapply’ posts that could trigger rules for buying and selling drugs on their platforms.
Gizmodo Meta communications director Andy Stone reports admitting that the website “discovered some examples of malpractice” when it comes to its rule against buying and selling drugs. He also said that the company has fixed these situations.
Content that attempts to buy, sell, trade, gift, solicit or donate drugs is not allowed. Content that discusses the affordability and accessibility of prescription drugs is allowed. We discovered some instances of wrongful enforcement and are correcting them.
– Andy Stone (@andymstone) 27 June 2022
in a reply tweet motherboard Content that attempts to buy, sell, trade, gift, solicit or donate drugs is not allowed, Stone said. However, the content discusses “affordability and accessibility of prescription drugs”. The post “Abortion pills can be mailed” should not be flagged if that’s the case, but it might go against other rules about it. to promote crime.
Gizmodo He did a test by typing “abortion pills can be mailed” to different accounts and found that Facebook only flags a status update if it’s posted on a burner account or an account that isn’t used regularly. We were able to confirm this too. Our post on a slightly used account was flagged, but the update we posted on our main account was not.
We also tried to share about other drugs and drugs in our accounts. Our post saying “I’m selling ivermectin, PM me” was flagged, but the post saying “ivermectin can be mailed” was not. This is consistent with the website’s rule. But our text “I sell cigarettes” is not marked. We also tried sending the message “You can get abortion pills from Aid Access by mail”, which should be unchecked if “availability and accessibility of prescription drugs” is allowed on the platform. One minute after posting this on our burner account, we were restricted.
As you can see, the application of the rule was inconsistent, and it’s not entirely clear why exactly the same content isn’t flagged on a hot account when it gets a warning on a hot account. Facebook may be flagging content about posting abortion pills, preventing this information from reaching people who need it. Especially since it even flags status updates from non-US users.
The main Facebook website isn’t the only Meta property to remove information about abortion pills. By Associated pressInstagram is also deleting posts about posting abortion pills, but our #abortionpills search yielded over 1,000 results.
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