This week I attended a roundtable sponsored by Essity on the shadow banning of women’s health content. An alarming new problem is emerging on social media: women’s health content is being quietly suppressed. According to research from CensHERship, 95% of women’s health educators have experienced shadow banning over the past year – posts using clinical terms like vagina, periods, menopause or endometriosis are being downranked, hidden or flagged as “unsafe.”
This isn’t just a free speech issue – it’s a public health one. Women and girls are being denied essential, life-saving information. A survey by Essity found that a third of women aged 18–24 struggle to find reliable health education on social media. Your average algorithm doesn’t see context – and big tech platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Meta, and Google are failing to distinguish between sexual content and medical education.
That censorship doesn’t just harm individuals – it’s hurting businesses too. Femtech startups, health charities and educators rely on social media to reach their audiences. In Parliament this week, campaigners, MPs, and femtech leaders met to demand accountability and transparency from tech companies. A single femtech business told how its revenue dropped by £500,000 in one year because their educational content was blocked.
This is about more than just words – it’s a systemic failure with real-world consequences. It’s time for the government to step in: platforms should be required to explain how their content moderation algorithms work, improve transparency, and fix this gendered bias.
Read the full article here: Big tech’s sexism is jeopardising women’s health
