Instagram and Facebook Blocked and Hid Abortion Pill Providers' Posts

Personal Reactions and Quitting Meta

• Several commenters responded by deleting or deactivating Facebook/Instagram, saying this incident pushed them past a “tipping point.”
• Others note deactivation (rather than deletion) may mitigate social awkwardness (missed messages, assumptions of being snubbed).

Data Retention, Tracking, and “Deletion”

• Skepticism that Facebook ever truly deletes accounts; some argue accounts are kept indefinitely for metrics and political clout.
• Debate over whether this matters if users never log in:
  • One side: stale data and dormant accounts can still feed profiling, network inferences, and political influence (“3 billion users” claims).
  • Other side: old, low-value data is unlikely to materially affect someone’s life.
• GDPR is raised as a possible constraint, but multiple commenters describe difficulty exercising GDPR rights or fully exiting.

Censorship, TikTok, and Domestic vs Foreign Control

• The blocking of abortion-pill posts is framed by some as evidence the U.S. wants “its own” censorship, while attacking TikTok as foreign.
• Disagreement over which is worse for Americans: domestic platforms (tightly coupled to U.S. law enforcement and politics) or foreign ones (less accountable but with fewer direct coercive levers).
• Some argue multiple platforms with different censorship agendas are better than a single “great firewall”; others fear fragmented propaganda ecosystems.

Meta’s Motives and Political Alignment

• Many see Meta as cynically currying favor with the new administration, expecting abortion-related censorship will please it.
• Others emphasize Meta’s long-standing scandals and pattern of riding out outrage because user behavior and investor satisfaction don’t change.
• A minority suggests this is likely routine enforcement of strict prescription-drug advertising rules, with “over-enforcement” corrected once the NYT asked, not a targeted anti-abortion plot.

Free Speech, Private Platforms, and Hypocrisy

• Strong tension between:
  • “Private platforms can do what they want” (and have a legal right to moderate), and
  • The argument that they wield quasi-public power, are politically captured, and hypocritically market themselves as free-speech champions.
• Some note that COVID/Biden-era support for aggressive moderation set precedents that can now be repurposed against the left.

Broader Systemic Critiques and Alternatives

• Meta leadership is described as unaccountable, profit-driven, and potentially sociopathic; the system that keeps them in place is blamed more than individuals alone.
• A few suggest alternatives like Pixelfed or self-hosted instances, but others argue that network effects and capital requirements make real competition unrealistic.