The hashtag #DeleteFacebook trended on Twitter as activists decried the social media giant’s role in helping to prosecute what looked to many like a young woman’s efforts to end her pregnancy. In the face of the pushback, Facebook said the search warrant they received didn’t mention abortion but declined to say how the company would have responded if it had been clear the case was about an abortion.
“If the order is valid and targets an individual, the tech companies will have relatively few options when it comes to challenging it,” said Corynne McSherry, legal director at the privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. “That’s why it’s very important for companies to be careful about what they are collecting because if you don’t build it, they won’t come.
To bolster the case, a law enforcement officer asked a court to order Facebook to turn over private messages between the women. In his application, the officer said the women had told investigators that they had texted back and forth on Messenger about Celeste’s pregnancy. In the messages, the two women discussed how to take pills and get the “thing” out of Celeste’s body, according to court records.
Companies are much more likely to succeed in challenging a court order if the requested data comes from a large group of people rather than from individuals, McSherry said.