Social media giant Facebook was served a warrant by Nebraska police to hand over direct messages between a mother and a daughter about taking abortion pills.
This prompted a movement to use the hashtag “#DeleteFacebook” and a discussion about privacy.
“I think the real story here is the privacy people have in online spaces. You don’t recognize why you need privacy until it’s too late. I think this story is an example of that,” said Cal State East Bay professor Nolan Higdon.
Police got a tip that a then 17-year-old girl got help from her mother to take abortion pills.
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Police were investigating if that happened and if it happened 20 weeks into the pregnancy or after.
Under Nebraska law, enacted before Roe v. Wade was overturned, abortion is illegal 20 weeks after an egg is fertilized.
“Facebook and other media outlets are frequently served with search warrants in criminal cases and what Facebook said is we had little recourse but to produce the information because this was a lawful court order,” said legal analyst Steven Clark.
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Police then went to Facebook to look for conversations between mother and daughter.
A spokesperson from Facebook's parent company Meta said, “Nothing in the valid warrants we received from local law enforcement in early June, prior to the Supreme Court decision, mentioned abortion. The warrants concerned charges related to a criminal investigation and court documents indicate that police at the time were investigating the case of a stillborn baby who was burned and buried, not a decision to have an abortion.”
Higdon, professor of communication and history, said this shows everyone's privacy is at risk.
“Social media is not free. It costs you your privacy. You are the product to provide data they process and analyze, predicting your behavior and it’s quite lucrative,” he said.
In this case it may cost two women their freedom when it comes to reproductive rights. Prosecutors are charging them with three felonies and two misdemeanors related to performing an abortion, concealing a body and providing false information.
