Women's Health Is A Dirty Secret On Social Media

Can talking about menopause get us banned from Instagram? We feel we’re taking a risk every time we post or launch a new HANX advert…

Why? Well, women's health content is being systematically restricted and censored across major social media platforms. We're talking shadowbans, rejected ads, and content removals that affect everything from the products you discover to the health information you can access. This week, our Co-Founder Farah Kabir spoke honestly with The Times as part of their report into digital double standards when it comes to women’s health…

What's Actually Happening?

We realised that the vast majority of people have zero idea that posting openly about menopause, libido loss and sexually transmitted infections on social media puts us at risk of losing our account totally (and nearly 30,000 community members). 

Let us tell you about our reality at HANX. With the help of CensHERship, we did a bit of analysis of our Meta campaigns since we first launched eight years ago. We found that up to 80% of our adverts for condoms (actual medical devices) get restricted or outright banned on Meta (that's Facebook and Instagram). Our Libido Lift supplement that’s designed to support women's sex drive during menopause? Also flagged and removed.

It’s not just HANX experiencing issues. Countless women's health brands face the same nightmare across Meta, TikTok, and Google, including Bodyform UK whose period content has been censored. Hertility, who help women understand their fertility through science and testing, also regularly have their educational content flagged as inappropriate.

The really infuriating part? While our posts about condoms get banned, ads for erectile dysfunction pills glide through approval. In fact, Meta's policies specifically approve erectile dysfunction as an advertising topic, but not women's libido loss.

Standing Up To Censorship

Organisations like CensHERship, The Case for Her and The Center for Intimacy Justice are doing brilliant work challenging these policies and making noise about how tech giants are restricting women’s health brands’ revenue and reach.

CensHERship especially has been documenting just how widespread this problem is and putting serious pressure on tech platforms to sort themselves out. They're making sure this issue can't be ignored anymore (find out more here!).

We also feel really grateful to be featured in major coverage like The Times and The Independent, which really helps to amplify the story of our struggle. The more people who know what's happening, the harder it becomes for platforms to keep getting away with it.

Standing up for women’s health

We literally quit our careers to improve women’s health. We’re all in on this and we believe women's health isn't taboo. It's not inappropriate. It's not obscene. It's vital healthcare. Full stop. Women's health deserves exactly the same respect, visibility, and platform access as any other health topic. Our right to information and products shouldn't depend on whether some algorithm thinks we're being "too sexual."

We'll keep fighting this fight, even when it means hours spent appealing ridiculous advert rejections, waiting out shadow bans on our Instagram account and constantly tweaking our content to satisfy rules that seem weighted against us. Frankly, we all deserve better. Watch this space…

Want more?

• The crackdown on kink. Discover why Meta’s censorship of sex positive creators, educators and communities is affecting livelihoods and perpetuating stigma here.

• Banned on Black Friday - learn more about our battles with Meta ad policies here.

• So, how far does this censorship go? Read more about our fight in The Center for Intimacy Justice’s 2025 report into tech platform’s systemic suppression of women’s health info here.