There Are No Girls on the Internet - Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Want You Talking About Abortion on Instagram

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook is all about free speech, just not when it comes to abortion. New reports from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reveal how Facebook and Instagram censor abortion content, even when it’s medically accurate and completely legal. Bridget joins Samantha and Anney and Stuff Mom Never Told You to unpack how Meta’s abortion content moderation really works, why posts about reproductive health keep disappearing, and what that means for free speech and reproductive rights online. Learn more: EFF’s Stop Censoring Abortion campaign See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No girls on the internet. Tech girls like Mark Zuckerberg love talking about how much they care about protecting free speech on their platforms. That is, until the speech in question is about abortion. Because then, suddenly all that free speech gets deleted, even when it's perfectly legal, medically accurate information. The truth is, big tech and social media platforms have always been hostile to people sharing resources about abortion and reproductive health. And now, thanks to new series of reports from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, we're getting a much clearer picture of just how deep this problem goes and the real world impact it's had. I got into all of this with

my friend Samantha and Annie over at the podcast Stuff Mom Never Told You. Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Steph I Never Told You, production of IHeart Radio. And today we are once again thrilled to be joined by The Fabulous, the Fantastic Bridget Todd. Welcome, Bridget. Thank you for having me back. I'm so excited to be here. We're so excited to have you. always. But yes, we were discussing beforehand. There's a lot for us that we would like your expertise on. So always we appreciate you coming on. There's so much going on right now. That being said, how are you, Bridget? You know, this week was, I don't know if you all feel it. I feel like the last few weeks has been pretty rough. It feels like things are different.

It just feels like a shift in the air, which can be hard to exist in, let alone. make content in that doesn't make people fearful and want to check out, which I think maybe we're all kind of navigating. Yeah, is that something that resonates with you too? Yes. Yes. We make a lot of contents and we do try to mix things up, but we also don't want to ignore things. But I mean, for instance, yesterday, I just had a lot of trouble concentrating on my work because I was thinking about all this other stuff. I'm like, what's going on in the world? What can I do?

Which I've always maintained that if you want to get more productivity out of people, then they're going about it the completely wrong way. But that's just a very small personal gripe of mine. But yeah, yeah, it's been difficult. You know what I've discovered is these tiny little coloring books that are really like easy coloring. So it's not detailed because I've discovered. Because I've discovered as much as I like to do those things, I cannot stay within the lines.

And when they get really, like, fancy, the adult coloring book version, like, they get fancy and you have to do the shading. I'm like, what is this? Why do I have so many things to color? So I've discovered these tiny ones that's just like a cutesy, large pictures of, like, a milkshake. It has been really nice that I can just check out, stay inside the lines and color with a marker, like those little, like, you know, paint-like markers. that has been really satisfying and nice to like zone out. Sam, you are speaking my language

because a good, I have a, I've spent so much money on this, but alcohol markers, like there's nothing quite like a good marker. When you buy a new set of markers, you're like, this is going to change everything. My future starts today. I've got this new set of markers.

And the ones that, that write really well are so satisfying. I know. I know I sound like a crazy person, but genuinely, the appeal of finding the right set of markers can change everything. Oh, no. I am obsessed with pins and well-written fine point pins. Like, it has to be fine points.

Like, the Chinese and Japanese have a market because they have some of the best, like, nicely flowing pins. Even though my handwriting is really, really bad. But I love the feel of like a nice, smooth right. But with these, like the alcohol markers, as you're talking about, the only problem I have is the color that they say they represent on the cap doesn't actually like translate in the marking. So I'm like, oh, this is a yellow and it turns orange. I'm like, wait, this is this is not. But it is very smooth and it is very satisfying because it fills all the lines and you're like, yes, I'm a professional color of course.

This is how much I tell seriously I take this. When I get a new set of markers, the first thing I do is a little color swatch to be like, okay, they say orange. see what their orange looks like. Just so I know, no surprises. You know what? That's good to eat. That is great advice as a newly marker purchasing person. So thank you.

I'm going to have to get some like scrap paper just so I can do that. This is, we can do a whole episode on this. Just pens, markers. It gives me a head tingles even just talking about it. I love it so much. So since I did the like pre-show, everything's the worst. I have to bring in this is a solution and it's coloring. small coloring books with wonderful markers. Yes.

Yeah, that can be the antidote to our troubling times. Have you considered just diving headfirst into the world of markers and penmanship and calligraphy and journaling and coloring? It might help. It is quite nice. Annie, I will leave some for you. I know you're about to house it for me. So I will leave some for you to try out yourself.

You know, I have two main thoughts from this. One is that I hate when this happens where your birthday is coming up, Samantha, and I wish I had known this earlier. Oh, no. That would have been a great gift. But then I think, Bridget, you should come on one time and let us talk about something that's not so stressful. Let's give ourselves a little break. We could talk about markers. I know you mentioned like reality TV.

We could have a whole thing where it's not something so do. Yeah. We make you do all the like dark stuff. We should let you come in with the joys that you have. Because we just talked about the Adirondacks and everything. Yeah. I feel like people who listen to my content might not know that I experience joy. I have my, my, the only things I talk about are not the crushing weight of fascism.

I also enjoy reality television. I think this would be fun. I think we should look into this. All right. Yeah, I like it. Oh, but unfortunately, before that, we're not doing that today. This is also, the timing is interesting because we're, Samantha and I are working on an update on CPCs, crisis pregnancy centers. I know them very well.

Yes, and we, in our research, ran into a lot of stuff about how tech companies were basically paying for them to advertise or accepting their money and being misleading about things. So this is very much related. What are we talking about today, Bridget? Well, that is such a good transition because it's all related. But tech companies really have put their thumbs on the scale when it comes to being able to get accurate content about abortion on social media. Your point about crisis pregnancy centers and the way that Google essentially is like paying an advertising network for them to exist is a great example. But today I really wanted to talk about how social.

media is heavily moderating and even in some cases like suppressing and censoring content about abortion. I think that we all talked about this back in January, but did you all remember when Mark Zuckerberg had that moment that people sort of talked about as this mask off moment back in January when Trump came back into office? I think that we were talking about how he really started dressing like a divorced nightclub promoter and was saying things like, oh, we're taking the tampons out of the washrooms at the restaurant here at Facebook HQ just really was sort of having a moment where he was saying a lot of things. Do you remember this? Oh yes. Oh yes. He was like he leaned in hard. He was like oh yeah. He's been waiting for this moment and yes. Oh my gosh. You can tell.

I mean I almost quibbled when people were like oh, it's his mask off moment because I don't think that Mark Zuckerberg has any kind of like I don't I wouldn't call it a mask off moment because I think that he is the definition of a hollow, empty person. And so I think he is the mask. He will say anything. I think that he has no, I'm honestly fascinated by him as a tech leader because I think that he has no value, scruples, morals.

There's just nothing. He will say anything. He will do anything. However the wind blows, that's how he will blow. And I don't think it's fair to call that a mask moment when truly like what the mask is not is not hiding anything. This is just genuinely like who you are. who you always have been, just a soulless person who was waiting to see who they should kiss up to

and will do that if it means holding on to power. Right. He was just waiting in the background. Yes. True personality was just waiting in the shadows. And it was like, oh, this is my moment. Mm-hmm. And so when that all was going on, he also announced that META was going to be scrapping their

community notes feature and scrapping all third-party fact-checking on the platform because, as he said, it was time for the company to get back to their roots when it comes to free expression. I will play a little bit of a video that he put out talking about this. Hey, everyone. I want to talk about something important today because it's time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram. I started building social media to give people a voice. I gave a speech at Georgetown five years ago about the importance of protecting free expression, and I still believe this today. But a lot has happened over the last several years. There's been widespread debate about potential harms from online content. Governments and legacy

media have pushed to censor more and more. A lot of this is clearly political, but there's also a lot of legitimately bad stuff out there. Drugs, terrorism, child exploitation. These are things that we take very seriously, and I want to make sure that we handle responsibly. So I have a lot to say about that. first of all, very convenient rewriting of the history that frankly wasn't that long ago and that you, if you're listening and you're my age, you probably remember

because we all know it is not a secret that Facebook, he, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook as a college student to rank the looks of the women on his college campus. Somehow we sort of let him get away with being like, I created Facebook to protect free expression. Okay, sure.

I don't know. I always have to like quibble at that because he, I saw a video where he said, oh, I just, I created Facebook because I wanted people to be able to have debates about the Iraq war. And it's like, no, you did. First of all, I was an organizer in, in the anti-war movement. Nobody was communicating on Facebook when we, like, Facebook wasn't for that. So that's just not true. I, I really have a thing where people lie to your face about recent history that you remember that you were there for that you were part of. So that's bullshit. But even more than that, he's talking about how the content that he really wants to focus on in terms of moderating the platform is a legal content, right? Child safety harms, drug trade, organized criminal activity, all of that.

So this is when he was really talking about how important it was to protect free expression on social media platforms. You might recall that around this time, he was in the headlines for saying that he felt the Biden administration had been. trying to pressure Facebook into removing COVID misinformation. The White House had a different take saying, quote, when confronted with the deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety. Our position has been very clear and consistent. We believe tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people while making independent choices about the information

they present. So, you know, Zuckerberg in this moment was like, we are not going to be moderating political content the way that we have been. We are going to lift restrictions on topics that are part of mainstream discourse and really just focus on the enforcement of illegal and like high severity violation. So yay for free speech, right? That all sounds great. Well, all of that is only the case if that part of the mainstream discourse is not abortion,

which Facebook continues to suppress and moderate quite heavily with zero transparency and zero consistency. So it seems like if you're spreading COVID misinformation, well, that is protected speech that needs to be left up for freedom. If you are sharing accurate information about abortion that isn't even against meta's policies, they will take it down. Yeah. And like you said, without warning or transparency or nothing, just is gone. And you might not know why. Or, well, you could probably figure it out. But one of the things that's really frustrating about all of this is that, you know, like you said, they're kind of lying to our faces, right? Like they're saying one thing and doing something completely different.

Yeah, that's what really makes me angry about this. You know, I cover a lot of tech companies. The thing that gets me is when they lie, when they say one thing publicly, when they publish something in their rules and regulations and policies, you know, no one's putting a gun to their head and making them put these things in their rules. They put them in their rules. And then they do a completely different thing. and then when advocates or organizers call them out on it,

there's just no, they're just like, oops, what are you going to do? That, for some reason, that just really gets me because they are allowed to enjoy all of this positive press of putting this thing in their policy and then continue doing the shady work of going against that policy. It never comes back at them. They're able to just do whatever they want while saying one thing and doing another,

and I just don't feel like they really get held accountable. And so a meta, spokesperson said that taking down abortion content goes against Meta's own intentions. A spokesperson told the New York Times, we want our platforms to be a place where people can access reliable information about health services. Advertisers can promote health services and everyone can discuss and debate public policies in this space. That is why we allow posts and ads discussing and debating abortion. But they're not doing that at all because the big thing to know here is that meta says one thing in their policies and then does a completely different thing

when it comes to how they are actually moderating abortion content. Yeah. And it's so difficult right now to get that good information. And there's so much misinformation, disinformation out there. And to remove it is just really piling onto a problem that really doesn't need any more piling onto. It is already really bad and people are already very confused. This is not helping. No, that's a really good context to set that, you know, we're in a time where the Supreme Court struck down row.

It is so much harder to access accurate information about health so that people can make health decisions for themselves. And when social media platforms like Facebook put their thumb on the scale, and make these kinds of moderation decisions with no transparency that go against their own stated policy, it just makes that climate so much harder. It makes it harder for the people who are trying to do this work, abortion providers and abortion advocates. It makes it harder for people who need to make decisions about their health and the people that support them. It makes it so that people cannot access information to figure out what they want to do with their own bodies and lives. And these companies do that while saying, oh, we promote the ability to use our platforms

to get this kind of information. I would prefer that they say, we don't like abortion. We don't want people using our platform to talk about abortion. So we take that content off. At least that would be honest. But what they are doing is lying to people about what they're actually doing while doing it. It's really adding insult to injury. Right. I mean, the true honest, or probably is that they are taking money or they know that they are just buying time until the entirety of our rights and reproductive rights may be completely dismantled

in every way. And that way they can already say, hey, leaders of this fascist regime, we have done everything for you. So can you keep supporting our platform and give us more money? I mean, the way that you've got the Fox Watch in the henhouse here,

the way that platforms are able to cozy up to really, I mean, it's not even really the Trump administration, just whoever is in power. And then that administration is also the administration that is meant to be overseeing and regulating them. It's horrible. And so we really, it's, I'm glad that you brought that up because I think that helps us peel back the layers

of what exactly is going on here and why it's so unacceptable. And in understanding that the whole confusion part is probably the point. I think that's true. I mean, in looking at some of the ways that Facebook says one thing and does another when it comes to moderating abortion content, I think that's exactly the point. It's like, you know, if we, and we'll get into this a little bit in a moment, but if we create

a confusing, inconsistent, not transparent climate, people will just stop posting this information on our platforms. And so we don't have to crack down on all of it. We don't have to have a policy that does not allow for abortion content to be on our platform. There'll be a chilling effect and people will do it on their own. they'll just stop posting on their own. And I think, in my opinion, that's the why of why this is happening. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite.

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What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast's Point Game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows.

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But according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, over the years we've really seen those rules be applied in far, broader and troubling ways with little transparency and significant impact on marginalized voices. And this is essentially allowed meta to suppress factual content about abortion that does not actually break any of the platform's rules.

So the reason why we know this is because the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, have really given us a snapshot into what's happening and provided to very clear receipts with their stop censoring abortion campaign. EFF says they collected stories from individuals, healthcare clinics, advocacy groups, and more. And together, they've revealed nearly 100 examples of posts and resources being taken down,

ranging from guidance on medication abortion to links of resources supporting individuals in states with abortion bans. What is important to note is that the post that they found that were taken down or that resulted in sometimes a ban did not break any of those. meta's rules. EFF said, we analyze these takedowns, deletions, and bans comparing the content to what platform policies allow, particularly those of meta, and found that almost none of the submissions we received violated any of the platform stated policies. Most of the censored posts simply provided factual educational information. So it really is a system where you don't know, I mean,

I guess you could guess, why this content is being taken down. There's no consistency. There's no transparency, and Facebook just gets to be like, oopsie when it happens. Here's a great example of a post that was removed from a health care policy strategist named Lauren Care discussing abortion pills availability by mail. Her post reads, FYI, abortion pills are great to have around whether you anticipate needing them or not. Plan C pills is an amazing resource to help you find reliable sources for abortion pills by mail no matter where you live. Once received, the pill should be kept in a cool, dry place. The shelf life of Miffie Pristone is about five. years. The shelf life of Misopristol is about two years. There is a misopristol only regiment

that is extremely safe, effective, and very common globally. So that post is just here is some factual information about these pills. However, Facebook removed that post and the explanation they gave Lauren was that they don't allow people to buy, sell, or exchange drugs that require a prescription from a doctor or a pharmacist. But as you can tell, that post isn't about selling or buying. or trading medication. It is just fact-based information about that medication. Yeah. It's one of those things where you read it and you're like,

I don't see the thing. The thing that you're saying is there. It's just, it's just information. Oh, makes me bad. Yeah. And EFF points out that this post does not break any of meta's rules and should not be removed. But you don't have to take their word for it

or my word for it because Meta said the exact same thing. EFF points out that Meta publicly insists that posts like these should not be censored. In a February 2024 letter to Amnesty International, meta's human rights policy director wrote organic content, i.e. non-paid content. Educating users about medication abortion is allowed and does not violate our community standards. Additionally, providing guidance on legal access to pharmaceuticals is allowed. So what the hell is up? Like, why, if it's allowed, why are you taking it down?

I'm so curious about, because if the moderators are essentially kind of removed, then is this just a, they have like a key word? Like, how is this happening? Is there a person or? That is a great question. If I had to guess, I would say, just knowing what I know about content moderation, I would say this is probably overuse of AI moderation and then not caring enough to correct that.

If I had to say, I would say, because honestly, content moderation is a job for a, not just a human, but a culturally competent human. When you don't have culturally competent humans making moderation decisions, it's a problem. And it's a problem that leads to the content of marginalized people being suppressed much more on these platforms, right?

And so if I had to guess, I would say, this is somebody using an AI content moderation and then not caring enough to correct that it is consistently taking making down content that does not break any of the platform's rules. That's my guess. Well, and that kind of relates to another thing I know you're going to talk about, which is something Samantha and I have also talked about on some of our episodes,

is shadow banning. That's right. I mean, shadow banning is one of those issues that I find very interesting because who among us has not posted something on social media, had that post not perform as well as you were expecting and wonder, am I shadow banned? I have definitely thought this myself. If you've ever thought that, you are not alone. but it does really happen.

So shadow banning is when a social media platform limits the visibility of someone's content without telling them. And this is happening to people and organizations that make content about sexual and reproductive health. And it's a real problem because as we were talking about before, the internet in 2025, like that is really where people are going to find information about their health, especially in a landscape where that information is more difficult to come by, where it's criminalized and cracked down on. So people need the internet as a resource.

And so if the people and advocates and organizations who provide that information online are shadow banned, it becomes that much harder to access what is often life-saving information to help people make health decisions. Earlier this year, the Center for Intimacy Justice shared a report called The Digital Gag, Suppression of Sexual and Reproductive Health on meta, TikTok, Amazon, and Google. And they found that of the 159 nonprofits, content creators, sex educators, and businesses that they surveyed, 63% had content removed on meta, 55% had content removed on TikTok. And this suppression is happening at the same time as platforms continue to allow and elevate videos of violence and gore, and extremist and hateful content. And this pattern is troubling because it only becomes more prevalent as folks turn more and more to social media to find the information that they need to make decisions about their health. And so I like that context because we really do have a social media landscape that allows for violent content, gory content, extremist or hateful content, to stay up while taking down accurate content about reproductive health that they agree does not violate any of their policies. It's pretty telling to you.

You have some examples here. And one of them is from a place near us that I was like, Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Emery? Yeah. Yep. But, I mean, it's also, as we're doing this research on the CPC episode, I consider myself pretty, you know, pretty informed about abortion and all of it.

But I had to look up some stuff about, like, I'm not sure. Is that legal there? I don't know. Like, I was feeling like, I don't know if I can trust this information. And then you try to go to a place where you're like, okay, I know this place. And then you find out it's taken down. It doesn't have anything about it. Yeah.

It's not a good climate. Yeah. And then you have Google allowing CPCs to stay, you know, high ranked in their search. And then when you go to CPCs, they tell you all kinds of misinformation about pregnancy and abortion. They are allowed to just essentially lie to people, people who are in vulnerable situations. And so it's already a client. where it's hard to find trustworthy, accurate information. And then the clearly not trustworthy, clearly not accurate information is allowed to, not

just allowed to exist, but they put their thumb on the scales in terms of making it more accessible than information that is factual. Yep. So let us get into some of these examples, including the one near us. So let's talk about what happened at Emory University. So Rise at Emory University, the Center for Reproductive Health and Research in the Southeast, they published a post saying, let's talk about Miffy Pristone and its uses and the importance of access. So they post this online. Two months later, their account was suddenly suspended, flagged under the policy against selling illegal drugs, which they were not selling or offering illegal drugs. They were just giving fact-based health information. They tried to appeal, but that appeal was denied, leading to their account being. permanently deleted. Sarah Redd, the director of research and translation at Rice, told EFF, as a team, this was a hit to our morale. We pour countless hours of person power,

creativity, and passion into creating the content we have on our page. And having it vanish virtually overnight took a toll on our team. And, you know, I really think, like, think about how critical that information is these days and how critical social media is these days. they are already doing sensitive work in an area where that work is threatened. And so losing your social media that you've put so much time into is like losing a lifeline, both for the staff and for the community that you're trying to do that work in. As EFF puts it, for many organizational users like Rise, their social media accounts are a repository for resources and metrics that may not be stored elsewhere.

We spent a significant amount of already constrained team capacity attempting to recover all of the content we created for Instagram that was potentially going to be permanently lost. We also spent a significant amount of time and energy trying to understand what options we might have available for meta to appeal our case and recover our account. Their support options are not easily accessible and the time it took to navigate this issue distracted from our existing work.

So I totally feel what they are saying that when you are doing work that is that critical, you know, time sensitive, having to stop that work to figure out, well, how are we going to appeal this decision to meta? Is all of our years and years of work on Instagram just lost forever? That is a real problem. And again, they weren't doing anything wrong.

Nothing that they posted on their account was against META's policies. It's just arbitrary. And so luckily, they were able to eventually get their account back, but only because they knew someone who knew somebody who worked at Facebook personally, which is really the only way to appeal when this kind of thing happens. If your account is taken down for no real reason by Facebook, I am sorry to say, unless you have a friend who knows somebody who works at Facebook, you're probably not going to be able to appeal. Again, because a lot of these decisions are AI, right? It can be very, very hard to escalate to a human.

And the only real way to do it is to just know somebody there. And again, I just feel that in these situations where meta agrees, these posts are not in violation of their rules and that they admit they made a mistake. it should not come down to knowing somebody at Facebook to have these decisions be reversed when meta agrees their mistakes on their part. Now I'm trying to think if I know someone at Facebook. I used to. I don't know if he's still there.

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriter Streeter Seidel

help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. There's that worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The yard birds, right?

That's the name. The Harvard Yard. They're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged. One erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smygel and friends

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That's 844-844-I-Hart. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play. game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows. Without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the

playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nass, but get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball. Like, after you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick.

Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can have opinions. You can have, like, a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation.

There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, another issue with this is, as you said, if people are worried that their content might be deleted or shadow banned or just they've seen this happen to other organizations. or something like that, and they might not post it anymore. Yeah, and I have to assume that is the point.

EFF writes, at the end of the day, clinics are left afraid to post basic information, patients are left confused or misinformed, and researchers lose access to these audiences. But unless your issue catches the attention of a journalist or you know someone at Meta, you might never regain access to your account. And so I really think that that is the sort of,

what here, that meta is dubing this to sort of not explicitly discourage organizations and advocates and people from posting this kind of information on their platform while saying the opposite. Because it is going to have a silencing effect. You know, nobody wants to

risk losing their entire platform years and years and years of content and research and resources that they've collected. Yeah, no one that's going to want to take that risk. Right. It's interesting that their policy with like the things that we're going to actually moderate is about terrorism and gang

and child endangerment, which is kind of a dog whistle for what the Republican platform has been to jump to all of this morality level of issues. And that the fact that Zuckerberg is like, you know what? Yeah, we're going to adopt this too, but it's purely to protect the peoples.

We're just protecting the peoples. And again, it does. seem like, see, see, we're doing like you. We got your back. We also agree with this, this is the only way or this is the best way to control what information is being out there. Yes. And if you actually, I mean, this is a whole other topic. But when you look at the way, so they say, okay, we're only going to be cracking down on content that creates harm for kids, this dog whistle that they love to pull up. And then when you look at the kind of harm for kids that they either allow or advocate.

Part of me is like, what, what content are you actually taking down? I don't know if you all saw the recent reporting. There was a very interesting report, I think from the Wall Street Journal, where they had gotten their hands on a internal policy document. So this is something that somebody at Facebook said, this is our policy totally fine to have in writing, no problem, that said that meta's chatbots were allowed to engage in sensual play with minors. So kids, it was okay with meta if their chatbots engaged in like sensual.

I won't say sexual, but I would say I've seen some of the content and it is sort of spicy that it's okay if they're if they're bots do that with children. And part of me is like, I cannot believe you'll put this in writing. I cannot believe that someone at Facebook said, yeah, this is a document. I'll attach my name to this. lo and behold, when the Wall Street Journal asked about it, they were like, oh, no, we have since walked that policy back. That's no longer our official on the record. Our official on the record policy is no longer that it's okay for our bots to engage in sexy role play with kids. We've walked that

back. I bet you did walk that back. Today, as you asked us this question. I'm so sure it happened right after the Wall Street Journal called them and asked them about it. I'm sure that it was like an hour later we walked it back. We got this. No, no, we would never. Right. Well, yeah, and I mean, you were here, Bridget, I guess it was years ago. And you were talking about another kind of whistleblower account of Facebook knowing it was harming young girls. Yeah. Francis Howgan is the whistleblower why me know that. Yeah. So it's, it is very galling for them to be like, we want to be, like, we want

protect the children and then you have these things. That again, directly show that clearly you don't, not really. And to be clear, that is knowingly harming kids. So I just think it's very interesting that Facebook gets to say, well, we're too busy focusing on content that harms kids to take down, to really care that much about what's going on with our abortion content. And that's the content we're really working on. But really, we're not doing that either.

You know what I mean? Like they get they really, it just infuriates me. It really does. And I think the issue really is to understand is in 2025, when you have a question, when I have a question, the first place I go is the internet, right? We all, that's, I think that is the reality for most of us. And the internet and social media really has become this lifeline for folks trying to get information about the world around us, including our sexual and reproductive health.

And if folks are not able to find what they need to. in their own communities, which I'm sorry to say is becoming more and more of the reality these days, they are going to go online to turn to social media to fill those gaps. That access really matters most for folks whose care is being cut off, like abortion seekers or trans or queer youth living in states

where health care is under attack. And so if you have these social media platforms kind of adding to a landscape where that information is difficult to access, even if that information is not against their rules, It's just making it that much more difficult. And these decisions really do matter. I mean, some of them are life or death,

and they really have real world impact on people's lives. Absolutely. And unfortunately, this is not, this is part of kind of a larger issue, kind of a larger attack, gendered attack, correct? Yes. So this is something I find so interesting. And I actually should come back and do another episode

on it in the middle of some research on it right now. But the Center for Intimacy Justice, whose report I mentioned earlier, they have another report that really shows how platforms routinely suppress sexual health content for women and trans folks while leaving content aimed at supporting the sexual health of cis men largely untouched. Right. So I know lots of people who run businesses that are focused on like the sexual health of people who are not cis men. Right. So if you have pelvic pain, if you need sex toys, like all these.

different things that are aimed at people who are not cisgender men. I have lots of friends who run businesses like that. They are essentially not able to do any kind of advertising on Facebook because Facebook does not allow it. However, Facebook certainly allows information about the sexual wellness of cisgender men. So we really have a climate where, let's face it, mostly men who run these platforms are able to determine whose sexual health is important and who is not. Whose health care is health care and whose is like something perverted that needs to be

suppressed and isn't allowed on their platform. Yeah. Now I'm thinking about it. As I've been looking at Instagram, the amount of GLP1 ads that I've been getting, which is interesting because I thought that was medication that you had to get through a doctor is overwhelming. But also on the vice versa of that is Mel's, you know, health. sex health, BS.

Those are the two ads that I get. Definitely nothing about women in birth control. Rarely. There's a few that, but it's as of late, I think zero. But the amount of GLP1 ads, I'm like,

what is happening Instagram? I thought we weren't allowing this. Yes, I mean, the amount of ads I get specifically for the erectile dysfunction medication blue chew. And the ads are, do you all ever seen these ads online? The ads are clear.

literally targeted at women. So it's a cute woman being like, ladies, get your man to get Blue Choo. Blue Shoe is going to rock your world. Get your man on Blue Choo. And that's a medication. That is that is a erectile dysfunction prescription medication. But these platforms have just decided, oh no, that's okay. You can you can show that all day long. No problem. You can boost it. You can put money behind it. Totally fine. But again, this is the rampant amount of ads. Like every two, like scrolls on Instagram that pops up. And on Facebook too, which is I'm like, I don't even go to Facebook.

I just need no people's birthdays. That's all I need. That's all I really want. But again, this seems to be like I thought once, if that was your policy from jump, then how are these as paying you? I know they're paying you millions. How are these okay?

Yeah, their policy is totally inconsistent, seemingly arbitrary, and seemingly biased against any kind of marginal identity. Like, that's just what's going on. They don't have any transparency. They say one thing and do another. And that just is the norm for them.

And it's, I really do think that we should be talking about how, you know, again, let's be honest. We're talking about mostly men and mostly not just men, like a specific kind of man, white, money, coastal, all of that. How we have given them so much power to define what knowledge is acceptable. whose voices are amplified, whose bodies are left at risk. And when platforms decide what can and can't be shared, they are making public health decisions with global consequences

in ways that are often contrary to public health and then also reinforce systemic inequalities. And so I just think, you know, this is not just, we're not just talking about like vague policy language. I know that I've spent a lot of time talking about that because it annoys me. But it's really about them deciding who gets to speak, who gets seen, who gets access to the information that they need to make decisions about their own

health and bodies. When meta and these platforms silence accurate, essential, sexual, and reproductive health information, they're not just enforcing inconsistent body rules. I mean, they are, but they're not just doing that. They are also shaping people's lives and really deciding whose health matters and whose doesn't. And in a world where we know the internet has really become this lifeline, that is not just annoying, although I am annoyed.

It is dangerous. Because Free Speech shouldn't come with a disclaimer that your body's safety is just optional and up to the whims of Mark Zuckerberg. No, I don't want to live in that world. No. I mean, I think about this all the time, the ways that these individual, like a handful of individual, mostly white guys, get to define what our worlds look like in these very concrete ways. And I've never met Mark Zuckerberg, although I have met Cheryl Sandberg. but I've never met Mark Zuckerberg. I don't want Mark Zuckerberg in charge of deciding anything for my life.

I don't think Mark Zuckerberg and I have any common idea about what it means to have a good, fulfilled life. I don't want him designing what my future looks like. I think that's very wise. I mean, that one movie made him look really pretty much a dick, so. Oh, my God. You mean the social network? One of my favorite movies. Oh, my God.

I don't want to spoil it. but the ending of that movie is my version of Citizen Kane. Have you both, you both have seen it? Yeah. Okay. I've actually not seen it. I've only seen clips because I'm like, I don't want to one,

no, but he seems like a dick. Go home and watch it tonight. I know your birthday is coming up. It's got to come and do for my birthday. Is it a fun birthday watch? I mean, I'm such a nerd. I say it's a fun watch, but if you're looking for a movie to watch on your birthday,

that might be one of them. It's a good, it's a solid, like, oh yeah, you're just a sad man ending. Yes. You know what I'm talking about. Oh, I know what you're talking about. His Citizen Kane, the sled moment at the end of that movie. It haunts me. And I think if you have it, I think if you've seen it,

it gives context for some of that stuff we've talked about when it comes to Zuckerberg today. I feel about right. Without even seeing it, I was like, yeah, it feels about right. I also love it. It's such a dark soundtrack. Oh, who is it? The guy from Knightage Nails. Yeah.

Oh, nobody does a heart. haunting soundtrack like Trent Resner. Gone girl soundtrack. Soundtrack to Challenger is also Trent Resner and that's the soundtrack I put on when I'm writing. If you need to focus and just like put on some headphones and be like we are fucking writing.

That is your soundtrack. Trent Resner can write a dark movie soundtrack like nobody's business. And I love that it was in this movie about this college kid trying to get a girl to like him. Oh Lord. Yes. Okay. Well, we'll revisit that later. We'll do maybe, you know, we had a fun time trash talking some Hugh Haffner that one time. We'll come back with a fun thing for you, Bridget. And you can decide because you always bring us these happy topics of your choosing. But before then, thank you so much for being here. Where can the good listeners find you?

You can find me on my podcast. There are no goals on the internet. You can find you. find me on Instagram. I know it's owned by Mark Zuckerberg. I don't like it either. At there at Bridgett, Marine, D.C., TikTok at Bridgett, Marie, D.C., and on YouTube, that there are no girls on the internet. Yes, go check all of that out if you have it already, listeners. If you would like to contact us, you can. You can email us at Hello at Stuff Whenever Told You.

You can find us on Blue Skype, Mosa, podcast, or Instagram, and TikTok at at Stuff One Never Told You. We're also on YouTube. We have new merchandise at Cotton Bureau, and we have a book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks, as always to our Super Producer Christina, executive producer Maya, and a contributor, Joey. Thank you. And thanks to you for listening.

Stuff never told these books to buy Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check out the Heart Radio app, up the podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman

help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as Castro 1021. And I'm Conky, his best friend and business manager. And we've got a new show called The 1021 Podcast. I'm taking you behind the scenes on how I became one of Twitch's most popular streamers We also love sports, and with the World Cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA.

Listen to the 1021 podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why are we all so obsessed with romance? On the Radio 831 podcast, join us, Sanjana Basker and Tyler McCall, as we unpack all the trending tropes, fuzzy adaptations, book talk drama, and celebrity love stories with hot takes and sharp guests. Each episode digs into what these stories reveal about desire, fantasy, identity, and how we love now.

Listen to the Radio 831 podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests, like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. David O'Yelloo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts.

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