Facebook has handed police in the US information to aid their investigation of a teen girl accused of getting an illegal abortion.
Nebraska authorities requested direct messages (DMs) from the social media company via a warrant and Meta complied.
The messages were between the teen, who was 17 at the time of the alleged abortion, and her mother.
Advert
The New York Post reports the DMs discussed abortion pills and confirmed plans for the teen to take them to end her pregnancy.
Nebraska's laws around abortion permit the procedure as long as the fetus isn't older than 20 weeks.
The teen was 23 weeks into her pregnancy when she allegedly took the abortion pills.
According to court documents, the teen asked in one of the messages: "Are we starting it today."
Advert
The mother allegedly responded: “We can if u want the one will stop the hormones."
Her daughter later added: “Remember we burn the evidence.”
After police were given the DMs, the mother and daughter were both charged.
Advert
The now 18-year-old has been charged with removing/concealing/abandoning a dead human body, concealing the death of another person and false reporting.
The teen's mother has been charged with performing or attempting an abortion greater than 20 weeks, performing an abortion when not a licensed doctor, removing/concealing/abandoning a dead human body, concealing the death of another person and false reporting.
Meta handed over the DMs two weeks before the US Supreme Court overturned the Roe v Wade legislation that gave women in the US a constitutional right to abortion.
After that law was overturned, Facebook held an 'all-hands' meeting, where CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked what Meta was doing to protect people who might be getting an abortion.
Advert
CyberScoop reports the company boss replied: “Protecting people’s privacy is always important, I get that this is extra salient right now [with] the Supreme Court decision and that specifically bearing on privacy."
“But it just has always been a thing that we care about.”
Since it was revealed that Meta complied with a warrant for information, people have been fuming on social media.
Advert
The hashtag #deleteFacebook has been trending, with many people worried about how their privacy is really protected.
Shane Ferro, a defense lawyer and writer, wrote on Twitter what could happen next.
"There are two ways out of the situation: the government can legalize abortion or it can pass privacy laws to stop Facebook from saving and keeping private message data," she said.
She warned people to use apps that have encryption capabilities if they wanted to discuss something private.
Advert
The Electronic Frontier Foundation released a statement after the Roe v Wade decision by the Supreme Court about this very issue.
The group said it's safe to 'assume that any data they provide online or offline could be sought by law enforcement'.
Topics: US News
Stewart Perrie