Fresh fears after Facebook’s role in US abortion case

Facebook sparked outrage by complying with US police probing an abortion case, boosting simmering fears the platform will be a tool for clamping down on the procedure.

Criticism built after media reports revealed the social networking giant had turned over messages key to a mother being criminally charged with an abortion for her daughter.

Advocates had warned of exactly this kind of thing after America's top court revoked the national right to abortion in late June, as big tech companies hold a trove of data on users locations and behaviour.

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Jessica Burgess, 41, was accused of helping her 17-year-old daughter to terminate a pregnancy in the midwestern US state of Nebraska.

She faces five charges — including one under a 2010 law which only allows abortion up to 20 weeks after fertilisation.

The daughter faces three charges, including one of concealing or abandoning a corpse.

An American flag waves outside the US Department of Justice Building in Washington, US. File/Reuters

Yet Facebook owner Meta defended itself on Tuesday by noting the Nebraska court order "didn't mention abortion at all", and came before the Supreme Court's highly divisive decision in June to overturn Roe v Wade, the case which conferred right to abortion in the United States.

"That sentence would seem to imply that *if* the search warrants mentioned abortion, there would be a different result. But of course that's not true," tweeted Logan Koepke, who researches on how technology impacts issues like criminal justice.

When queried about handing over the data, the Silicon Valley giant pointed AFP to its policy of complying with government requests when "the law requires us to do so."

Nebraska's restrictions were adopted years before Roe was overturned. Some 16 states have outright bans or limits in the early weeks of pregnancy in their jurisdictions.

Agence France-Presse