Instagram accounts linked to reproductive rights, sexual health and LGBTQIA+ groups have been disabled or restricted, organisations affected by the measures say.
French medical NGO Médecins du Monde (MdM) says two of its field programmes were removed from the social media platform, while campaigners tracking online restrictions report a sharp rise in complaints this year. The Jasmine account, an MdM programme aimed at fighting violence against sex workers, was disabled by Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, on 5 May. “We were suspended without any kind of notification,” Sarah-Marie Maffesoli, a sex work advocacy officer at the organisation, told RFI. The Jasmine account had already been briefly suspended in late March before being restored. After the account was suspended again, MdM appealed two days later. Meta rejected the appeal and permanently disabled the account on 11 May. Meta told the NGO that the account would be permanently disabled because its content “still does not comply” with community standards. No further explanation was provided. Von der Leyen steps up EU child safety crackdown on social media giants Moderation guesswork “We don’t even know which content was involved, even though, of course, we are extremely careful,” Maffesoli said. Trained as a lawyer, she also questioned how the appeal was handled. The process lasted three days and involved no exchanges with the organisation. “Can this really be considered an appeal?” she asked. Jasmine had just over 6,000 followers, but MdM insisted the account was far more than a communication tool. It shared information in 10 languages and included an alert system allowing sex workers to report attackers. “We are losing an operational tool, both for prevention and for contact with sex workers,” Maffesoli warned. Another MDM programme, Rosela, was then disabled, followed by the account of Grisélidis, a partner association in Toulouse.
