After the campaign of anti-abortion stickers affixed to Vélib’ in Paris, the dissemination of misleading content on social networks? The Women’s Foundation published, this Wednesday 17, a report which reveals the strategy and arguments of anti-abortion movements on online platforms.
The four main networks – YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and X – were thus analyzed through the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a think tank specializing in disinformation and extremist movements.
Thus, “the ISD found that anti-abortion mobilization mainly took the form of false information, misleading statements about abortion and shocking and dissuasive content,” we can read in the report. He continued: “Much of this content appears intended to discourage users from seeking abortion and to sow doubt about the safety of medical treatments used during abortion.”
Obstruction of abortion sanctioned
As a reminder, obstructing abortion is an offense registered in French law, punishable by imprisonment of up to two years and a fine of up to 30,000 euros.
In 2017, a new law extended this sanction to any Internet user seeking to obstruct access to abortion by concealing their intentions, in particular pages presented as “neutral” but disseminating speeches hostile to abortion.
This text has considerably reduced the number of misleading sites, very present on Google and “which redirected women seeking information on abortion to “neutral” call centers but aimed at dissuading them from abortion”, reports The world.
Lack of clear social media policy
Problem: while social networks each have their own policy regarding misinformation, not all of them explicitly specify false information regarding abortion. In fact, only YouTube prohibits content that “contradicts the recommendations of local health authorities or the World Health Organization (WHO) on the safety of medical and instrumental abortion.” Facebook, for its part, is content with a health misinformation policy, without mentioning reproductive health.
However, this does not prevent the distribution of anti-abortion videos on YouTube – the Women’s Foundation regrets a policy applied in an “inconsistent” manner. Some clips, the report adds, do not display an “information panel,” as required by the platform’s rules. Videos promoting potentially harmful procedures, such as the administration of progesterone to reverse the effects of medical abortion, also remain online.
In fact, on these platforms, misleading content is increasing. On Instagram, for a user who indicates her interest in the topic of abortion, “the ISD found that the algorithms recommended Reels containing erroneous information on abortion”, even though the Internet user had never viewed similar content.
Content broadcast by the far right
Furthermore, the study reveals that this type of disinformation was disseminated by accounts “linked to the tradwife movement” (an online movement advocating women’s dedication to domesticity and motherhood). Many of these accounts describe motherhood as a woman’s “duty.”
In addition – and unsurprisingly – the ISD shows strong activity from Christian, royalist and far-right activists. “The ISD thus noted that (unofficial) Facebook pages and groups supporting Éric Zemmour’s Reconquest! party played a key role in the dissemination of anti-abortion content,” it is specified in the document.
Some of these organizations fund advertisements aimed at young women, according to ISD data. Thus, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, generated approximately 43,750 euros thanks to 199 anti-abortion advertisements on the social network between May 2022 and June 2023. These advertisements were seen by 9.4 million users, underlines the report .