Big tech's sexism is jeopardising women's health
4 min read
An internet on which you can’t say the word “vagina” in its proper context feels like something out of The Handmaid’s Tale. But it’s here, and it’s happening now.
Campaign group CensHERship’s research shows 95 per cent of women’s health educators were targeted for so-called shadow banning online over the past year.
Women’s health charities say their ability to reach women with essential information is being severely curtailed by platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Meta and Google. They have quietly restricted, downranked or hidden women’s health content which contains educational terms like “periods”, “menopause”, “vagina”, and “endometriosis” under the guise of “safety”.
Women and girls deserve equal, uncensored access to vital health information. Research by Essity found that a third of women aged 18 to 24 struggle to source women’s health information on social media. They believe that in some cases, this is costing lives.
The public is ahead of social media platforms on this - 77 per cent of adults say words like “vagina” or “periods” must not be restricted when used in an educational context. It’s now time for big tech to catch up, and the government has a critical role to play in this.
To that end, this week I brought together MPs, campaigners, women’s health organisations, as well as leading femtech companies, in Parliament. The meeting was convened by Essity alongside CensHERship.
We heard about the impacts of this shadow banning on health and on entrepreneurs and the economy given that social media presence and impact are vital to building and growing businesses these days.
The femtech industry global market size is expected to exceed £70 billion globally by 2030. But innovative businesses are being stymied and are experiencing financial losses due to the capriciousness of the Big Tech algorithm.
These are not minor incidents and have real consequences. Female-led businesses and femtech innovators report significant financial losses when campaigns are blocked. One business estimated their revenue dropped by £500,000 in a year due to shadow banning.
Smaller start-ups, especially those working on menstrual or sexual health, cannot afford to spend months appealing ads that are rejected purely for using anatomically correct language.
A recent report by Essity, whose women’s health products under brands like ModiBodi and Bodyform have been shadow-banned by these platforms, found women’s health terms were restricted more than men’s.
This shadow banning is not transparent, not justified, and not neutral. It is a form of digital inequality and institutional sexism, and Labour must push the platforms to explain themselves.
We need ministers to compel platforms to disclose how their automated moderation works and what steps they will take to prevent discriminatory shadow banning. The technology used by platform companies, including social media algorithms, has huge public safety implications, and as the Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee’s report into misinformation recommended earlier this year, this technology should be transparent and accessible to public authorities.
Better transparency, better reporting mechanisms and proper accountability should not be optional extras.
Platforms are continuing to overlook the harm they are causing. Parliament cannot.
Algorithms dominate and dictate so much of our lives now that it simply cannot be ignored when they discriminate against women. No matter how much the Big Tech firms might want to look the other way.
And the discrimination is clear. Essity conducted a test with a husband/wife influencer pair and found major drops in engagement for women’s health posts compared with men’s health content.
We have been here before. Historically, women’s health has been dismissed, medicalised poorly or treated as taboo. Today’s technology may be new, but unfortunately, the pattern is not.
Big tech has the power to fix this. A system that understands the context behind women’s health terms can and must be created.
Shadow banning of women’s health is not a technical glitch. It is a systemic failure. And it is time for the government to make those responsible answer for it.
