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U.S. lawmakers are questioning Google about how the company’s search engine shows users of certain states inaccurate results about abortion services by diverting them to “fake clinics” that don’t provide the procedure and deter people from putting end of pregnancy.
In a letter sent to Sundar Pichai on Friday, CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet, 20 Democratic members of Congress and independent Senator Bernie Sanders (Vt.) Urged the company to quickly rectify the issue of accuracy. of the search, noting that it arrives as one of the United States. The decision of the Supreme Court later this month could overturn the right to abortion established in Roe against Wade.
What if Roe v. Wade was canceled?
Lawmakers cited a recent report that found states with “abortion laws” in abortion, with 11 percent of Google search results for abortion services leading users to non-medical facilities that they do not offer abortion; the result was 37 percent for Google Maps queries. The U.S.-based Center for Countering Digital Hate report also found that nearly 28 percent of Google ads that appear at the top of related search results pages were from anti-abortion clinics.
“Leading women to fake clinics that traffic in misinformation and do not provide comprehensive health services is dangerous to women’s health and undermines the integrity of Google search results,” Democratic said. lawmakers wrote in the letter that it was headed by Senator Mark R. Warner (Va.) and MP Elissa Slotkin (Mich.).
Lawmakers asked Google to limit the occurrence of fake abortion clinic results when users search for “abortion clinic” or similar terms, or to add more prominent disclaimers about whether a facility offers abortion services. abortion; both lawmakers and the CCDH say existing liability exemptions are too small and can be easily lost.
The request from members of Congress comes after Google pledged in 2014 to remove ads from some “crisis pregnancy centers” that violate the company’s policy against misleading advertising.
In a statement on Saturday, a Google spokesman said it is constantly working to improve its search results to better serve users and said that “any organization that wants to advertise to people seeking information about abortion services on Google has to be certified and to show disclosures in the announcement that clearly indicate whether or not they offer abortions ”.
The reproductive rights landscape in the United States is expected to change dramatically in response to the Supreme Court ruling, which could come on Monday. In addition to the 13 states that have already enacted “activating laws” that effectively ban abortion at this time Roe is overturned, at least five others are expected to do the same.
What are “trigger” laws and what states do they have?
Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have laws that explicitly protect abortion rights at the state level, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a New York and Washington-based nonprofit research center that supports abortion rights. abortion. The rest of the states do not have any specific laws or unenforced bans on books.
Imran Ahmed, director general of the Center for Digital Hate Countering, told The Washington Post that the draft Supreme Court opinion leaked in May has spurred “massive” global growth in fundraising activity background and creativity among groups seeking to undermine fundamental reproductive rights. Similar issues surrounding reproductive rights and misinformation about abortion are emerging in Kenya, Latin America and the United Kingdom, he said.
Fighting misinformation through accurate search results is especially critical for Google given its global reach, Ahmed said. Google is by far the most popular search engine, with more than 90 percent of the global market share, according to German consumer data analytics firm Statista.
“When Google fails, it can have a huge impact on the whole word,” Ahmed said.
The operation of Google’s search algorithm is a well-kept trade secret, but the company says in a public guide to its search engine that Google searches for web pages. is considered relevant to a user’s search query and then returns results that he believes are “of the highest quality and most relevant to the user.” Google says it uses “hundreds of factors”, including user location and language, to determine “relevance”
But Ahmed said the search algorithm can be easily played while trying to determine which web pages they are relevant, even for groups that create networks of intertwined pages.
Fake abortion clinics, often styled as “crisis pregnancy centers” or “pregnancy resource centers,” do not offer abortions, although critics say they try to create an appearance of abortion. medical facility offering pregnancy tests, ultrasound or sexually transmitted tests. infections. The Journal of Ethics of the American Medical Association has argued that while “crisis pregnancy centers” are legal, they are unethical “in providing misleading information and causing delays and inequalities in access to abortion.”
In contrast, “crisis pregnancy center” sites actively discourage patients from choosing abortion, often through misinformation. False clinics ’false claims cited in the CCDH report include that abortions will make a pregnant woman infertile or that suicidal impulses are“ common ”after an abortion.
Ahmed stressed that the relevant criticisms of fake abortion clinics are not their ideology, but the deceptive tactics they use to induce people to behave the way they want.
“People have a right to have an opinion on abortion,” he said. “But it is [their] use of deception that makes him so evil. “
With the misinformation and misinformation that have a direct impact on people’s personal health, Ahmed said it is crucial that the major technology platforms act responsibly and that policymakers hold them accountable.
“This is just one more example of how hate and misinformation actors can arm digital platforms to cause real-world harm to people,” he said.