Censorship is well and truly alive in 2025, and Meta is leading the charge. Following the recent revelation that both Facebook and Instagram have been blocking, blurring, and outright removing content from abortion pill providers, it came as no surprise to many that this censorship now includes advertisements promoting period pants, tampons, and breast pumps.

An investigation from Cosmopolitan has found that a number of leading femtech companies have experienced their ads being blocked or shadowbanned—a clear indicator that Meta is pursuing a political strategy that reflects the new presidential administration.

Trump has only been in office a few days and Meta is already censoring vital information about abortion:

Instagram is blurring and blocking posts from @AidAccessUSA and @HealthMayday, two of the most important telehealth providers in the country pic.twitter.com/4kV9HkMjIC

— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) January 23, 2025

Meta =censorship

— Lexy Panterra (@LexyPanterra) February 3, 2025

According to the publication, products relating to female healthcare—ranging from period and sanitary products to breast pumps and pelvic floor devices—have been flagged by Meta as “sexual” or categorised under the “adult content” section. Moreover, the use of words such as “vulva” and “vagina” also seem to be a big no no in Zuckerberg’s eyes.

In 2024, Clio Wood, a women’s health advocate, author and founder of &Breathe, along with Anna O’Sullivan, founder of FutureFemHealth, launched the CensHERship campaign—an operation aimed towards tackling social media censorship of women’s health and sexual wellbeing content. Wood and O’Sullivan discovered that this type of censorship was taking place across every social media platform, an issue that has clearly escalated during Donald Trump’s recent political ascendance.

Speaking with the publication, the two advocates shared: “There’s a well-acknowledged gender health gap, but all too often the companies and products helping to fill the gap are facing a virtual closed door when they try to grow their businesses online.”

One interesting aspect pulled from this conversation is the fact that, for a number of years now, companies who use anatomically correct language relating to women’s health have been penalised. Another investigation from Cosmopolitan revealed that due to society’s obsession with wanting to sanitise and sexualise femininity, words such as “labia majora, vagina and vulva,” have effectively been wiped from a number of platforms.

I mean, how many period ads have we all been forced to watch where ‘period blood’ is represented by bubblegum pink blotches? Don’t worry about the crippling cramps caused by endometriosis, these new tampons allow you to go ice skating!

In 2023, Bodyform, a sanitary product company whose mission statement focuses on demolishing period stigma, shared a list highlighting forty words relating to female health and wellbeing that are routinely silenced by Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Some of the words included on the list included discharge, miscarriage, and PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome).

 

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Policing women and their access to very standard and rudimentary female healthcare products marks the next insidious step in conservative politicians’ plans towards executing Project 2025. The Handmaid’s Tale simulation might be closer than we think.