'Horrifying and utterly unsurprising': The 'shady' abortion reversal ads running on Facebook

Facebook logo.
(Image credit: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)

Social media giant Facebook has been allowing ads for an "unproven and unethical" abortion reversal procedure to be seen up to 18.4 million times over the last year and a half, The Daily Beast reports.

The "shady" ads are typically a part of anti-abortion campaigns, and advertise a "potentially dangerous," non FDA-approved abortion pill reversal method. According to a 92-ad analysis from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, such bulletins were viewed on Facebook "between 16.2 and 18.4 million times — including more than 700,000 times by children between the ages of 13 and 17" — from Jan. 1, 2020 to Sept. 8, 2021, The Daily Beast writes, per the CCDH. What's more, the social network reportedly "accepted between $115,400 and $140,667 for these ads over that time period, according to its own ad library."

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Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.