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Meta more than doubled removals of content on to sexual and reproductive health, LGBTQ communities, and sex worker\u2013led initiatives from 2024 to 2025.Mother Jones<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tGet your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.<\/a><\/p>\n Leaked documents reveal that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, has blocked its AI chatbot from discussing topics including abortion with minors\u2014a blanket policy that contrasts<\/a> sharply<\/a> with the firm\u2019s<\/a> handling<\/a> of child sexual exploitation<\/a> claims, and that may also inadvertently affect its content for adults. <\/p>\n Internal Meta documents obtained by Mother Jones, containing a comprehensive list of policy guidelines for Meta\u2019s chatbot interactions with users under the age of 18, shed light on how the company is training its chatbots to respond to children\u2019s questions on issues ranging from sexual health to suicide and self-harm, eating disorders, and other mental health issues.<\/p>\n The revelations come as the company faces a landmark trial accusing it and other social media platforms including TikTok\u2014which settled before the trial could begin\u2014of deliberately designing features<\/a> they knew would harm children\u2019s mental health, following a series of whistleblower allegations that Meta\u2019s traditional platforms knowingly aggravated teenage body image issues<\/a> and promoted content<\/a> that led to bullying, drug abuse, and self-harm.<\/p>\n More recently, the company has been accused of allowing children to flirt with its chatbots and of further failures around self-harm content; in response to pending lawsuits and criticism of its youth content policies, Meta has said it will block teenage users from accessing character chatbots modeled after celebrities or fictional characters. However, those users will retain access to Meta AI, which the company said provides \u201chelpful information and educational opportunities\u201d to teens.\u00a0<\/p>\n The documents provided to Mother Jones show that as of September 2025, in response to public scrutiny, the company started to prohibit \u201ccontent that discusses, describes, enables, encourages, or endorses sensual acts, sex acts, sexual arousal, or sexual pleasure\u201d with teenagers, which it was previously criticized for allowing. Similarly, if teenagers ask questions related to suicide or self-harm, the chatbots are designed to point children to mental health resources;\u00a0if teenagers ask questions about eating disorders, Meta\u2019s policy is to have the chatbots direct users to a hotline and encourage them to reach out to a trained counselor.\u00a0<\/p>\n But while Meta has strengthened safeguards for youth users around eating disorders and depression, its policies have simultaneously cracked down on information around abortion and sexual health.<\/p>\n According to the company\u2019s policies, chatbots are prohibited from offering underage users \u201ccontent that provides advice or opinion about sexual health,\u201d including \u201canatomy and physiology of reproductive organs, puberty education, menstrual health, fertilization and reproduction, STI and HIV prevention, contraceptive methods, consent education and abstinence.\u201d The company also bans the chatbot from encouraging teenage users to use condoms or menstrual hygiene products.\u00a0<\/p>\n The policies explicitly ban providing information \u201cthat helps a user obtain or carry out an abortion (such as \u201cYou can go to Planned Parenthood to get an abortion\u201d), or providing users with locational information that could be used to obtain abortions. It also prohibits the chatbot from providing a \u201cvalue judgement\u201d for or against abortion.\u00a0<\/p>\n Martha Dimitratou, who heads the advocacy group Repro Uncensored<\/a>, says Meta\u2019s AI policies follow a pattern of censorship across its platforms and services. Data collected by Repro Uncensored shows that Meta more than doubled its removal of content related to sexual and reproductive health, the LGBTQ community, and sex worker\u2013led initiatives between 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery organization 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,\u201d a spokesperson for Meta said in response to a request for comment. \u201cWe allow posts and ads promoting health care services like abortion, as well as discussion and debate around them, as long as they follow our policies. We also give people the opportunity to appeal decisions if they think we\u2019ve got it wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Dimitratou says that the nonprofit, which advocates and researches access to reproductive health information online, has met with Meta for years to urge that the platform \u201cconsider abortion as health care and direct to accurate health care resources,\u201d treating abortion-related and reproductive rights content in the same way it\u00a0treated Covid-19\u2014including by proactively correcting misinformation\u2014but that Meta has \u201ccategorically said that this is not a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n And in the face of attacks by conservative influencers and politicians like House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Mark Zuckerberg has walked back even those steps, characterizing<\/a> Meta\u2019s Covid information policies as a regrettable cave to Biden administration pressure.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the last year, however, the Republican crusade against Big Tech\u2019s perceived woke bias has grown to include an obsession with chatbots. In July, President Trump issued an executive order titled \u201cPreventing Woke AI in the Federal Government,\u201d calling among other things for AI companies to suppress information related to gender and sexuality.<\/p>\n While the executive order pertains to AI use by the federal government, the leaked policies show that Meta is willing to capitulate to conservative policies even in its consumer products, says Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, a technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re particularly concerned when it seems like tech companies are developing products that censor certain information at the request of the government,\u201d Hoffman says. \u201cIt seems like a particular difference here where you see Meta is willing to provide extra sources for eating disorders or suicide, but not willing to provide information about Planned Parenthood or where to get more information about safe abortions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur AIs are trained to engage in age-appropriate discussions with teens, and to connect them with expert resources and support when appropriate. They provide factual information on sexual health but refrain from offering advice or opinions. We continuously review and improve our protections so that teens have access to helpful information with default safeguards in place,\u201d Meta\u2019s spokesperson said.<\/p>\n Since the Supreme Court\u2019s Dobbs ruling<\/a>, twenty states have implemented total bans or restrictions<\/a> beyond Roe v. Wade\u2019s standards, while the Trump administration has further restricted access nationwide by withdrawing federal guidance requiring emergency abortion<\/a> care, defunding Planned Parenthood clinic<\/a>s, blocking Veterans Affairs<\/a> coverage even in cases of rape or health risks, and launching investigations<\/a> into abortion medication. \u201cIt is worrisome in a context where the state governments and the federal government are putting a lot of pressure on people\u2019s access to information about reproductive health and in particular abortions,\u201d Hoffman says.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the same time, according to Dimitratou, more users are requesting information from chatbots. Repro Uncensored estimates that search traffic from AI tools like ChatGPT as much as doubled in the US and in Europe in 2025. The need for AI-based searches to offer reliable information on abortion, she says, is becoming inescapable. But tests conducted by Repro Uncensored call Meta\u2019s AI the \u201cmost unreliable\u201d of comparable consumer AI products like Google\u2019s Gemini and OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The repercussions of American tech platforms\u2019 policies on abortion-related information, Dimitratou says, can be felt globally. \u00a0Even for adults, she says\u2014to whom it\u2019s designed to return accurate information\u2014Meta\u2019s AI often provides responses about more resource-intensive options like cross-border travel, even when telehealth and abortifacient pills are legal in a user\u2019s jurisdiction.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe pattern is always the same,\u201d Dimitratou says. \u201cPartial information and a tendency to scarcity framed as inevitability.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n When Dimitrou tested Meta\u2019s chatbot through WhatsApp from Brussels, it refused to engage in abortion-related conversations, even though abortions are legal in the country for both adults and minors with the consent of their parents.<\/p>\n In my own testing of Meta\u2019s AI with an account emulating a youth user, the chatbot imposed stricter restrictions than those documented in the company\u2019s internal logs, declining to discuss topics including menstruation, contraception, and abortion\u2014even though abortions are legal for teenagers without parental consent in New York, where the test took place. In the same run of tests, the chatbot also sometimes started to offer answers barred by Meta\u2019s policies\u2014before erasing those responses and providing default censorship language.\u00a0<\/p>\n In response to a question on whether the chatbot endorsed abortions, the chatbot began to print what appeared to be a thorough answer on the legality of abortion and the impact of the Dobbs ruling on access\u2014only to erase the response within seconds and replace it with \u201cSorry, I can\u2019t help you with this request right now,\u201d mirroring some Chinese chatbots\u2019 replies to queries on the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre or the status of Taiwan.<\/p>\n Dimitratou says Meta\u2019s choice to treat abortion information foremost as a political issue, rather than a health issue, has already had a chilling effect on sexual and reproductive health information access around the world. \u201cMany young people get their information from Meta,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing a growing information and a health crisis where people aren\u2019t getting the help they need.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meta more than doubled removals of content on to sexual and reproductive health, LGBTQ communities, and sex worker\u2013led…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-491506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}