Meta accused of restricting sexual health and LGBTQIA+ Instagram accounts

French medical NGO Médecins du Monde (MdM) said Meta permanently disabled two of its Instagram accounts in May, part of a broader pattern of restrictions affecting sexual health and LGBTQIA+ groups that a coalition of Dutch and European rights organizations is now challenging under EU law.

MdM's Jasmine account, a programme aimed at fighting violence against sex workers, was disabled by Meta on 5 May. MdM appealed two days later, but Meta rejected the appeal and permanently disabled the account on 11 May, telling the NGO the content "still does not comply" with community standards. Sarah-Marie Maffesoli, a sex work advocacy officer at MdM, said the account had just over 6,000 followers and shared information in 10 languages, including an alert system for sex workers to report attackers. "We were suspended without any kind of notification," Maffesoli told RFI. She said the account had been briefly suspended in late March before being restored. Screenshots shared by MdM regarding the Jasmine account referred only to "community standards" without identifying the specific post or rule applied.

Another MdM programme, Rosela, was then disabled, followed by the account of Grisélidis, a partner association in Toulouse. Maffesoli said the Grisélidis account was removed after a post announcing outreach sessions and condom distribution. "We don't even know which content was involved, even though, of course, we are extremely careful," she said. MdM later publicly criticised the suspensions on its own Instagram account, asking: "How far will the censorship go?"

Repro Uncensored, which documents digital censorship affecting sexual and reproductive health and LGBTQIA+ rights, said the cases reflect a broader pattern. Founder and executive director Martha Dimitratou told RFI the group received more than 130 reports in April alone. "We have already had more cases since January than in the whole of last year," she said. Repro Uncensored documented a previous wave of restrictions in late 2025 affecting more than 50 organisations worldwide, including abortion access groups and queer accounts. My Voice, My Choice, a European campaign advocating safe access to abortion, said it lost access to livestreaming for more than 300 days and that several team members suddenly lost access to the account earlier in May.

On 20 May, a coalition including Repro Uncensored, Bits of Freedom, COC Netherlands and several Dutch queer organisations sent Meta a formal notice citing the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Dutch anti-discrimination law. The groups allege Meta may be engaging in "digital discrimination" by applying its rules unevenly and excluding marginalised communities. Lawyer Minke Gommer of Bureau Brandeis said this was the first case using the DSA to challenge content moderation by a very large online platform on discrimination grounds. "Removing queer accounts without reason or warning is a violation of European law," Gommer said in a statement. "Platforms are not allowed to structurally exclude minority groups from public debate."

A Meta spokesperson said: "All organisations and all people on our platforms are subject to the same set of rules, and any claim that our decisions are based on group membership or advocacy activity is baseless. We also give users the option to appeal decisions if they believe we have made a mistake." Meta told RFI it was examining the affected accounts and promised an update "as soon as possible". The DSA, which came into force in 2024, requires platforms to provide a "clear and specific" explanation when suspending or removing accounts, including which rules were invoked and whether automated systems were used.