5 ms·

Hey surely Meta wouldn’t send that data to a government interested in regulating women’s reproductive rights

by ronbenton 5mo ago

juggina 5mo ago
[flagged]
- forgotaccount3 5mo ago
  People in power want the information to identify a narrower set of people who may have been pregnant and then did not have a child and so may have had an abortion. And facebook doesn't care about people's rights when those people in power are able to block Facebook from acquiring some new startup they want to buy, so facebook is willing to share the information.
  - euroderf 5mo ago
    Handmaids, assemble! Gilead is in your device.
  - lagniappe 5mo ago
    Are we assuming the lack of a recorded period is the criteria? If yes, what if you just forgot to add it that month, or have hormonal issues, or abnormal BMI?
    - pavel_lishin 5mo ago
      You're welcome to suggest to your lawyer this particular defense. The people prosecuting women for abortions aren't looking for reasons not to arrest and prosecute them.
      - joe_mamba 5mo ago
        >The people prosecuting women for abortions aren't looking for reasons not to arrest and prosecute them. Who are these people doing this?
        deleted 5mo ago
        [deleted]
        intrinsicallee 5mo ago
        https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia-woman-charged-murder-abortion-pills/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia-woman-charged-murder-ab... https://www.newsweek.com/texas-gop-meeting-death-penalty-women-abortions-1884950 https://www.newsweek.com/texas-gop-meeting-death-penalty-wom... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/30/pregnancy-us-women-crimes-study https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/30/pregnancy-us... https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/after-overturn-of-roe-more-women-face-prosecution-for-what-they-do-while-pregnant https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/after-overturn-of-roe-more... "Abstract When Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health first overturned long-standing precedent protecting a woman's fundamental right to abortion, pro-choice leaders issued warnings about the possibility of prosecuting women for abortions. These concerns were dismissed as hysterical or as political theatrics because, in the past, women were rarely prosecuted for their own abortions. This note analyzes the history of illegal abortion before the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade to demonstrate that women were targeted, used as leverage against abortion providers, and sometimes arrested for their roles in the procedure." https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj/vol69/iss4/11/ https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj/vol69/iss4/11/
        Tangurena2 5mo ago
        Texas & West Virginia is one of those states that prosecute women for having miscarriages. Texas offers a $10k bounty for turning in any woman who leaves the state and somehow returns without that pregnancy. > Nationally, about 20% of pregnancies end in a loss, which includes miscarriage or spontaneous abortion, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth or fetal death, according to federal data. Only a small number are investigated as crimes. But advocates say the growing number of laws in some states place people’s actions following pregnancy loss under greater scrutiny from law enforcement. > Women in South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and several other states have faced criminal charges after a miscarriage or stillbirth for failing to seek immediate medical treatment, not pursuing prenatal care or disposing of the fetal remains in a way that law enforcement or prosecutors considered improper. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/10/31/stillbirth-oklahoma-arkansas-women-investigated https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/10/31/stillbirth-okl... Many states prosecute black women who miscarry and one of their claims is that the woman took some (illegal - allegedly) drug that caused the miscarriage. > In the year after the U.S. Supreme Court dismantled the constitutional right to abortion in June 2022, more than 200 pregnant women faced criminal charges for conduct associated with their pregnancy, pregnancy loss or birth, according to a new report. https://missouriindependent.com/2024/10/01/200-women-faced-criminal-charges-over-pregnancy-in-year-after-dobbs-report-finds/ https://missouriindependent.com/2024/10/01/200-women-faced-c...
    - cogman10 5mo ago
      Lots of reasons why you would miss a period that aren't pregnancy related. But that's not the point. Missing a period opens you up to further scrutiny and investigation by the state. Now they will start seeing if you've made out of town trips or perhaps subpoena your chat log to see what you've said to friends and family. It's not enough to prosecute, it is enough to start an investigation.
      - Muromec 5mo ago
        It's scary and all, but does it actually happen?
        cogman10 5mo ago
        Does what actually happen? Prosecutions for abortions? Yes. Warrants related to people getting an abortion? Yes. A period tracker being used as the jump off point for those prosecutions/investigations? Hard to say, maybe? If the data is being sold it isn't hard to imagine that prosecutors and busybodies aren't currently mining that data.
        Chris2048 5mo ago
        > isn't hard to imagine that prosecutors mainly because I have no idea whether it's realistic to imagine what prosecutors do. I can also easily imagine it to be illegal and wildly unrealistic behaviour for a prosecutor, in my ignorance. > Warrants related to people getting an abortion? The question here isn't whether abortion is illegal in some states, but about period tracking data could be used as evidence, or justify an investigation - especially data that is seemingly illegally obtained. AFAIK, illegally obtained evidence is normally not valid grounds for investigation, and might actually weaken the case based on "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine.
        cogman10 5mo ago
        > I can also easily imagine it to be illegal and wildly unrealistic behaviour for a prosecutor It's not [1]. There's no safeguards on information available for purchase like this. The US has very little in the way of digital privacy laws. > especially data that is seemingly illegally obtained. That's the thing, it's not illegal to sell private data. It's not illegal for prosecutors and cops to buy private data. It definitely feels like it should be, so I get why you'd think that. Feels aren't the legal code. [1] https://www.npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-s1-5752369/ice-surveillance-data-brokers-congress-anthropic https://www.npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-s1-5752369/ice-surveillanc...
    - triceratops 5mo ago
      https://www.haslettlaw.com/blog/2013/november/-you-may-beat-the-rap-but-you-cant-beat-the-ride/ https://www.haslettlaw.com/blog/2013/november/-you-may-beat-...
  - joe_mamba 5mo ago
    >People in power want the information to identify a narrower set of people who may have been pregnant and then did not have a child and so may have had an abortion. And what will people in power do with this information?
    - malfist 5mo ago
      Do you really have to ask that question? They've criminalized health care. There's motive, history and current events to explain what they'll do with this information.
    - array_key_first 5mo ago
      Presumably try to get those women arrested, or at least investigate them. It's actually quite difficult to investigate an abortion, though. Abortion isn't "real", in the sense that there's no obvious difference between a natural abortion (read: miscarriage) and a purposeful one. The thing that means abortion abortion colloquially is the purposeful-ness of it. If you knowingly terminate a pregnancy, that's an abortion. If your body terminates its own pregnancy, for a variety of reasons because the human body is very complicated, that's not an abortion. Generally trusting people with that nuance is, I think, asking for trouble.
    - muwtyhg 5mo ago
      Are you not American? We have literal abortion bounty programs[1] in some states. There is definitely a desire to find women who have had abortions and punish them for it. [1] https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1107741175/texas-abortion-bounty-law https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1107741175/texas-abortion-bou...
      - joe_mamba 5mo ago
        >Are you not American? NO, that's why I asked. As per John Oliver's last week tonight, "Did you know there are countries that are not America?"
      - juggina 5mo ago
        [flagged]
  - Muromec 5mo ago
    Do they actually want that or just want to be elected and say things that rhyme with your fears?
  - juggina 5mo ago
    [flagged]
- freeAgent 5mo ago
  If you stop having a period for a few months and then start again, it may be worth buying some location data during that time to see if you were near any medical offices that may have offered illegal abortion services.
  - juggina 5mo ago
    Could they get a warrant for that data anyway?
    - _alternator_ 5mo ago
      Not if you don't have the data. This is one of the reasons that google changed how it tracked people's data.
    - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
      What reason would they have to ask for a warrant without that data?
    - pdpi 5mo ago
      You can't (in theory) get a warrant "just because", you need to state the grounds for the search in your application for a warrant.
    - giantg2 5mo ago
      Why get a warrant when you can just buy it? This whole data economy has significantly undermined privacy, including 4th amendment protections.
      - nwatson 5mo ago
        Admissible evidence probably requires parallel construction and then a warrant. The purchased data is the catalyst but not legally actionable.
        voakbasda 5mo ago
- 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
  Meta is a defense contractor. They absolutely would do this for money if asked. Just like how a good portion of HN would.
- Lapra 5mo ago
  The data is already being (ab)used in the UK. https://humanists.uk/2025/06/04/police-access-to-period-apps-highlights-need-to-decriminalise-abortion/ https://humanists.uk/2025/06/04/police-access-to-period-apps...
- blks 5mo ago
  To punish people they suspect in abortion, for example.
  - juggina 5mo ago
    [flagged]
- SamDc73 5mo ago
  Not sure why, but they did cooperate with the government on such matters Facebook previously gave private Messenger chats to Nebraska police, these messages were used as key evidence to charge a mother and daughter over an alleged illegal abortion[1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/10/facebook-user-data-abortion-nebraska-police https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/10/facebook-use...
ndisn 5mo ago
[flagged]
- peen1slicker 5mo ago
  This is a very insightful comment. Can you expand on it a little for the rest of the hackers here who might be less smart than you?

Hey surely Meta wouldn’t send that data to a government interested in regulating women’s reproductive rights

juggina 5mo ago

[flagged]

forgotaccount3 5mo ago
People in power want the information to identify a narrower set of people who may have been pregnant and then did not have a child and so may have had an abortion. And facebook doesn't care about people's rights when those people in power are able to block Facebook from acquiring some new startup they want to buy, so facebook is willing to share the information.
- euroderf 5mo ago
  Handmaids, assemble! Gilead is in your device.
- lagniappe 5mo ago
  Are we assuming the lack of a recorded period is the criteria? If yes, what if you just forgot to add it that month, or have hormonal issues, or abnormal BMI?
  - pavel_lishin 5mo ago
    You're welcome to suggest to your lawyer this particular defense. The people prosecuting women for abortions aren't looking for reasons not to arrest and prosecute them.
    - joe_mamba 5mo ago
      >The people prosecuting women for abortions aren't looking for reasons not to arrest and prosecute them. Who are these people doing this?
      - deleted 5mo ago
        [deleted]
      - intrinsicallee 5mo ago
        https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia-woman-charged-murder-abortion-pills/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia-woman-charged-murder-ab... https://www.newsweek.com/texas-gop-meeting-death-penalty-women-abortions-1884950 https://www.newsweek.com/texas-gop-meeting-death-penalty-wom... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/30/pregnancy-us-women-crimes-study https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/30/pregnancy-us... https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/after-overturn-of-roe-more-women-face-prosecution-for-what-they-do-while-pregnant https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/after-overturn-of-roe-more... "Abstract When Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health first overturned long-standing precedent protecting a woman's fundamental right to abortion, pro-choice leaders issued warnings about the possibility of prosecuting women for abortions. These concerns were dismissed as hysterical or as political theatrics because, in the past, women were rarely prosecuted for their own abortions. This note analyzes the history of illegal abortion before the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade to demonstrate that women were targeted, used as leverage against abortion providers, and sometimes arrested for their roles in the procedure." https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj/vol69/iss4/11/ https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj/vol69/iss4/11/
      - Tangurena2 5mo ago
        Texas & West Virginia is one of those states that prosecute women for having miscarriages. Texas offers a $10k bounty for turning in any woman who leaves the state and somehow returns without that pregnancy. > Nationally, about 20% of pregnancies end in a loss, which includes miscarriage or spontaneous abortion, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth or fetal death, according to federal data. Only a small number are investigated as crimes. But advocates say the growing number of laws in some states place people’s actions following pregnancy loss under greater scrutiny from law enforcement. > Women in South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and several other states have faced criminal charges after a miscarriage or stillbirth for failing to seek immediate medical treatment, not pursuing prenatal care or disposing of the fetal remains in a way that law enforcement or prosecutors considered improper. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/10/31/stillbirth-oklahoma-arkansas-women-investigated https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/10/31/stillbirth-okl... Many states prosecute black women who miscarry and one of their claims is that the woman took some (illegal - allegedly) drug that caused the miscarriage. > In the year after the U.S. Supreme Court dismantled the constitutional right to abortion in June 2022, more than 200 pregnant women faced criminal charges for conduct associated with their pregnancy, pregnancy loss or birth, according to a new report. https://missouriindependent.com/2024/10/01/200-women-faced-criminal-charges-over-pregnancy-in-year-after-dobbs-report-finds/ https://missouriindependent.com/2024/10/01/200-women-faced-c...
  - cogman10 5mo ago
    Lots of reasons why you would miss a period that aren't pregnancy related. But that's not the point. Missing a period opens you up to further scrutiny and investigation by the state. Now they will start seeing if you've made out of town trips or perhaps subpoena your chat log to see what you've said to friends and family. It's not enough to prosecute, it is enough to start an investigation.
    - Muromec 5mo ago
      It's scary and all, but does it actually happen?
      - cogman10 5mo ago
        Does what actually happen? Prosecutions for abortions? Yes. Warrants related to people getting an abortion? Yes. A period tracker being used as the jump off point for those prosecutions/investigations? Hard to say, maybe? If the data is being sold it isn't hard to imagine that prosecutors and busybodies aren't currently mining that data.
        Chris2048 5mo ago
        > isn't hard to imagine that prosecutors mainly because I have no idea whether it's realistic to imagine what prosecutors do. I can also easily imagine it to be illegal and wildly unrealistic behaviour for a prosecutor, in my ignorance. > Warrants related to people getting an abortion? The question here isn't whether abortion is illegal in some states, but about period tracking data could be used as evidence, or justify an investigation - especially data that is seemingly illegally obtained. AFAIK, illegally obtained evidence is normally not valid grounds for investigation, and might actually weaken the case based on "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine.
        cogman10 5mo ago
        > I can also easily imagine it to be illegal and wildly unrealistic behaviour for a prosecutor It's not [1]. There's no safeguards on information available for purchase like this. The US has very little in the way of digital privacy laws. > especially data that is seemingly illegally obtained. That's the thing, it's not illegal to sell private data. It's not illegal for prosecutors and cops to buy private data. It definitely feels like it should be, so I get why you'd think that. Feels aren't the legal code. [1] https://www.npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-s1-5752369/ice-surveillance-data-brokers-congress-anthropic https://www.npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-s1-5752369/ice-surveillanc...
  - triceratops 5mo ago
    https://www.haslettlaw.com/blog/2013/november/-you-may-beat-the-rap-but-you-cant-beat-the-ride/ https://www.haslettlaw.com/blog/2013/november/-you-may-beat-...
- joe_mamba 5mo ago
  >People in power want the information to identify a narrower set of people who may have been pregnant and then did not have a child and so may have had an abortion. And what will people in power do with this information?
  - malfist 5mo ago
    Do you really have to ask that question? They've criminalized health care. There's motive, history and current events to explain what they'll do with this information.
  - array_key_first 5mo ago
    Presumably try to get those women arrested, or at least investigate them. It's actually quite difficult to investigate an abortion, though. Abortion isn't "real", in the sense that there's no obvious difference between a natural abortion (read: miscarriage) and a purposeful one. The thing that means abortion abortion colloquially is the purposeful-ness of it. If you knowingly terminate a pregnancy, that's an abortion. If your body terminates its own pregnancy, for a variety of reasons because the human body is very complicated, that's not an abortion. Generally trusting people with that nuance is, I think, asking for trouble.
  - muwtyhg 5mo ago
    Are you not American? We have literal abortion bounty programs[1] in some states. There is definitely a desire to find women who have had abortions and punish them for it. [1] https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1107741175/texas-abortion-bounty-law https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1107741175/texas-abortion-bou...
    - joe_mamba 5mo ago
      >Are you not American? NO, that's why I asked. As per John Oliver's last week tonight, "Did you know there are countries that are not America?"
    - juggina 5mo ago
      [flagged]
- Muromec 5mo ago
  Do they actually want that or just want to be elected and say things that rhyme with your fears?
- juggina 5mo ago
  [flagged]
freeAgent 5mo ago
If you stop having a period for a few months and then start again, it may be worth buying some location data during that time to see if you were near any medical offices that may have offered illegal abortion services.
- juggina 5mo ago
  Could they get a warrant for that data anyway?
  - _alternator_ 5mo ago
    Not if you don't have the data. This is one of the reasons that google changed how it tracked people's data.
  - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
    What reason would they have to ask for a warrant without that data?
  - pdpi 5mo ago
    You can't (in theory) get a warrant "just because", you need to state the grounds for the search in your application for a warrant.
  - giantg2 5mo ago
    Why get a warrant when you can just buy it? This whole data economy has significantly undermined privacy, including 4th amendment protections.
    - nwatson 5mo ago
      Admissible evidence probably requires parallel construction and then a warrant. The purchased data is the catalyst but not legally actionable.
      - voakbasda 5mo ago
2ndorderthought 5mo ago
Meta is a defense contractor. They absolutely would do this for money if asked. Just like how a good portion of HN would.
Lapra 5mo ago
The data is already being (ab)used in the UK. https://humanists.uk/2025/06/04/police-access-to-period-apps-highlights-need-to-decriminalise-abortion/ https://humanists.uk/2025/06/04/police-access-to-period-apps...
blks 5mo ago
To punish people they suspect in abortion, for example.
- juggina 5mo ago
  [flagged]
SamDc73 5mo ago
Not sure why, but they did cooperate with the government on such matters Facebook previously gave private Messenger chats to Nebraska police, these messages were used as key evidence to charge a mother and daughter over an alleged illegal abortion[1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/10/facebook-user-data-abortion-nebraska-police https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/10/facebook-use...

ndisn 5mo ago

[flagged]

peen1slicker 5mo ago
This is a very insightful comment. Can you expand on it a little for the rest of the hackers here who might be less smart than you?