We've had content taken down for talking about perimenopause and glucose regulation. Medically accurate, fully referenced, not remotely sexual. Flagged and removed. When we spoke to other founders and health educators about it, the same story came back every time.
This is a shared experience across women's health, and it now has a name. CensHERship, an advocacy group that has spent over a year documenting the problem, has published an open letter signed by more than 190 founders, doctors, charity leaders, and campaigners. Our co-founder Liton Ali has signed it. We'd encourage anyone who works in health, or who thinks adults should be able to read about menopause without a content warning, to do the same. You can add your name at censhership.co.uk/open-letter.
What CensHERship found
CensHERship's research paints a consistent picture: 95% of respondents experienced some form of censorship on social media in the past 12 months. Nearly 4 in 10 experienced it more than ten separate times. Posts using anatomical terms like "vagina" or "breast" are flagged as adult content. Advertising for health products is rejected. Educational material about gynaecological cancers gets its reach throttled. Appeals go unanswered. Platforms including Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, Google, and Amazon have all been cited.
The result is that more than half of women's health creators now self-censor their language. They swap clinical terms for euphemisms, avoid topics they know will trigger suppression, and dilute information that people actually need. A breast cancer awareness campaign reported having to show a male nipple instead of a female one to avoid being taken down.
Why this matters for metabolic health
A large part of what we publish at Nico covers how glucose regulation changes during perimenopause, why insulin resistance is so common in women over 40, and what the research says about hormonal shifts and metabolic health. That means using words like "menopause", "hormones", "menstrual cycle", and "insulin resistance in women" regularly and without apology.
Meanwhile, content about erectile dysfunction passes through moderation without issue. The double standard is difficult to explain as anything other than systemic bias in how these platforms classify women's health.
When health platforms and educators are forced to speak in code, the people who lose out are the ones searching for answers. Someone trying to understand why they've gained weight since turning 45, or why their energy has collapsed, or why their sleep has changed, deserves to find accurate information without it being buried by an algorithm that treats the word "period" like profanity.
The economic argument
McKinsey and the World Economic Forum have estimated that closing the women's health gap could add $1 trillion annually to the global economy. That figure becomes harder to reach when the businesses and educators building in this space are being muted by the platforms they depend on.
The open letter calls on social media platforms to update moderation systems so that medical context is recognised. It asks policymakers to address gender bias in digital regulation. And it calls on investors to ensure women's health innovation can scale without censorship undermining it.
Add your name
The letter has been signed by leaders from Clue, Bodyform, Hertility, Daye, Mooncup, and dozens of other organisations. It's backed by a whitepaper, "Censorship Revealed", compiling over a year of evidence, survey data, and case studies.
If you work in health, wellness, or education, or if you've experienced this kind of suppression yourself, read the letter and add your name at censhership.co.uk/open-letter.
This shouldn't require a campaign. But it does, so please get behind it.