‘They made us feel like pregnancy was a bad word’: How Meta is ‘silencing’ adverts on girls’s well being and wellbeing | EUROtoday

Posts about being pregnant, menopause and infertility are being “silenced” by Meta, with adverts for gadgets comparable to being pregnant pillows being blocked from the positioning with out good motive, it has been claimed.

BellaMoon and Hertility are among the many corporations which have claimed Meta, TikTook and Google are blocking posts and adverts about girls’s well being and way of life merchandise, whereas permitting related posts about males’s well being points to thrive.

BellaMoon, a small model from Ireland, was first blocked by Meta in January after the positioning reclassified its flagship product, a being pregnant pillow, as a medical gadget. The firm ended up taking out the phrase “pregnancy” from all its adverts, with CEO Irene Breen telling The Independent: “They made us feel like pregnancy was a bad word.”

Meta launched new well being classes in January 2025 and rolled out extra restrictions to stop advertisers sharing info that’s not allowed underneath Meta’s phrases. This info consists of delicate well being knowledge.

But femtech corporations – companies concerned in know-how merchandise addressing girls’s well being and wellbeing points – declare the brand new guidelines disproportionately “censor” girls well being content material.

They have repeatedly accused the platformsof “systemic bias and discrimination” and say the difficulty is having a “catastrophic” impression on their income, with the founder of 1 firm having to bear counselling to assist deal with the immense stress.

Meta has given “vague and inconsistent” causes for repeatedly blocking, eradicating and limiting content material about girls’s well being, depsite adverts about males’s well being – comparable to erectile dysfunction and sperm testing – persevering with to look on the identical platforms, they declare.

A Meta spokesperson stated their insurance policies have “always prohibited advertisers from sharing sensitive information” and that these measures “did not block these organizations from running ads”.

‘We wasted more than £100k on extra ads’

BellaMoon stated its adverts have been first blocked after the enterprise was reclassified as a medical “condition” advertiser. This “misclassification” handled the product as if it have been a regulated medical gadget, which the corporate categorically refuted.

“The rug was pulled from under our feet,” CEO Irene Breen advised The Independent. “They struck the word pregnancy from the ads. In doing so, they struck through our entire business. That was a massive kick in the stomach.”

BellaMoon was advised to make modifications to their web site after which reapply to Meta inside 30 days for a evaluation.

The firm took “drastic measures” to implement change in accordance to what they thought the corporate needed to see, taking the phrases “pregnancy” and “nursing” off the product names and changing it with “3-in-1 pillow”. In a determined bid to regain Meta’s advert approval, in addition they “scrubbed” all of their URLs to take away the phrase “pregnancy”, regardless of understanding this is able to severely have an effect on their visibility on-line.

But the corporate stored getting rejected with out justification, coping with a loop of autoresponders, with all of their questions for Meta remaining “unanswered”.

In the ten months since their account was suspended, the corporate had invested over £100,000 in ineffective advert spend that didn’t attain related audiences. Their site visitors from Meta adverts dropped from 70 per cent to twenty per cent, they usually took a “colossal” hit to their income.

“It felt catastrophic,” Ms Breen stated. “They made us feel like pregnancy was a bad word. We have been silenced and made to feel like we’re doing something wrong.”

The firm is now in “survival mode” as they fight desperately to construct a world the place they will function with out Meta to outlive. Ms Breen stated she needed to have counselling to cope with the “trauma” of the ordeal, whereas members of employees have taken depart attributable to acute stress.

‘We are being punished by the algorithm’

Hertility, a MHRA-regulated model that sells at-home hormone and fertility assessments, was reclassified by Meta as a “health and wellness condition” advertiser in February this 12 months, with no clarification or attraction course of.

This reclassification blocked the adverts that beforehand reached as much as 600,000 girls a month. Ads for males’s hormone and sexual well being providers, testosterone assessments proceed to run on the net platforms.

The model skilled a 40 per cent site visitors drop, and misplaced entry to lots of of 1000’s of customers per thirty days.

“We are being punished by the algorithm,” stated Deirdre O’Neill, co-founder of Hertility. “There is a pattern of bias here. We are being erased.”

Ms O’Neill advised The Independent that the “biggest frustration” is felt once you see what’s allowed to be marketed on Meta for males’s well being. “Sperm testing is fine but not egg tests- it’s overtly unfair.”

In one other occasion, Meta courses erectile dysfunction as a well being situation but permits adverts for therapies. Meanwhile, it has repeatedly blocked adverts and posts a few product which helps enhance girls’s libido, citing its coverage which bans promotion of “sexual pleasure or enhancement”.

One advert that was restricted underneath this coverage acknowledged: “Finally, a natural libido supplement… Perfect for menopause, gynae-designed, natural supplement.”

The advert for a male libido therapy was allowed, which acknowledged: “Are you tired of performance anxiety ruining your erections? We’ve helped over 500,000 men overcome erection issues… ‘I found that I was more confident about sex. Almost like I was 18 again.’”

Clio Wood, co-founder of CensHERship, stated: “To Meta, this feels like a small individualised problem. But our data shows this is a systemic issue, this is one of many problems.”

A latest survey by CensHERship discovered 95 per cent of girls’s well being creators skilled censorship up to now 12 months, and over half stated they now self-censor their language to keep away from being taken down from social media platforms.

Anna O’Sullivan, co-founder of CensHERship, stated they consider a lawsuit involving Flo Health, which runs the period-tracking app Flo, has made on-line platforms “really sensitive to sharing women’s health data”.

In September, Google and Flo Health have been ordered to pay $56 million (£43 million) to settle a category motion claiming they violated the privateness of hundreds of thousands of Flo app customers by gathering details about their menstrual well being cycles and utilizing it for focused promoting.

Facebook and Instagram father or mother Meta Platforms didn’t settle, and was discovered liable by a jury on 4 August after a two-week trial.

But slightly than focusing on dangerous follow in a exact manner, Ms O’Sullivan claims they’ve “suppressed legitimate ads for legitimate products which women need”.

She added: “How can we own these conversations about our bodies when we are being penalised?”

In March 2025, CensHERship and blended-finance funding agency The Case for Her filed a proper criticism with Ofcom and the EU’s Digital Services Act, urging regulators to analyze.

After being approached for remark, TikTook contacted Hertility to offer clarification on the coverage, and the adverts workforce reinstated 4 of Hertility’s movies following a evaluation.

A Meta spokesperson stated: “Meta’s terms and policies have always prohibited advertisers from sharing sensitive information, including health data, and we have measures in place designed to help prevent advertisers from sharing such information.

“These measures did not block these organisations from running ads; they limited the ability to share potentially sensitive information with Meta. Advertisers can request a review if they believe their data source category is not appropriate, and we are working directly with these organisations to provide further guidance.”

A Google spokesperson stated: “We have long allowed ads for fertility treatments and services in most countries. To ensure advertisers don’t target people based on sensitive health information, including women’s health advertising, we do implement certain protections.”