CENTER FOR INTIMACY JUSTICE AND US SENATORS CALL ON FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE META’S REJECTIONS OF WOMEN’S SEXUAL HEALTH ADVERTISEMENTS

Senators Mazie Hirono, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Adam Schiff Ask that the FTC Thoroughly Investigate the Issues Raised in Center for Intimacy Justice’s FTC Legal Complaint 

WASHINGTON, DC  – JULY 17, 2023 – The Center for Intimacy Justice (CIJ) has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requesting that the FTC take action regarding Meta’s systemic rejections of women’s health information and advertisements. Today, a number of Congressmembers — led by Senators Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Mazie Hirono, Peter Welch, and Representative Adam Schiff — published a public letter to the FTC asking the agency to thoroughly review the concerns raised in CIJ’s recent legal complaint and take appropriate action.

In Center for Intimacy Justice (CIJ)’s legal filing with the FTC, the nonprofit CIJ alleges that Meta engages in unfair and deceptive trade practices by purporting to allow advertisements for sexual and reproductive health and wellness products on Facebook and Instagram, while in fact persistently and systemically rejecting advertisements for products benefiting women and people of underrepresented genders. In contrast, Meta permits many advertisements for men’s sexual health.

In January, 2022, Center for Intimacy Justice published a report revealing Meta’s systemic rejections of women’s health advertisements. In the months after CIJ’s report, Meta made revisions to its Adult Products & Services and Adult Nudity policies, including to state more examples of sexual health advertisements that are allowed. However, CIJ’s research has found that, in practice, women’s health advertisements are still continually rejected by Meta, even if they use the exact language Meta now states in its policies is allowed (e.g. for addressing menopause, or pain relief during sex).

Meta’s policies (both in the revised 2022 policy and earlier) also state that ads for products that support sexual pleasure or sexual enhancement are not allowed. However, Meta specifically added in 2022 – in the same policy – that erectile dysfunction ads and premature ejaculation ads are allowed. Center for Intimacy Justice states that the product examples Meta specifies as not allowed, for supporting sexual pleasure, are products used disproportionately by and for women and LGBTQ people.

The Center for Intimacy Justice’s FTC filing was written with its lawyers at Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic, within the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. The legal writing, digital organizing and communications, and Congressional engagement for this campaign was led entirely by young women.

A social media campaign with the hashtag #StopCensoringSexualHealth is being launched in tandem with the Congressmembers’ letter to the FTC, with key stakeholders calling on the FTC to investigate the issues raised in CIJ’s FTC complaint and asking Meta to enforce allowing women’s health ads in practice. A public petition about the issue can be found here. 

The Center for Intimacy Justice is a social change organization committed to equity and wellbeing in people’s intimate lives.

Contact: Carol Wersbe, press@intimacyjustice.org