By: Amy Li
As recently as last Friday, June 17th, 20 members of the Congress and Independent Senator, Bernie Sanders, sent a letter to Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. This letter was sent to address the matter of ads that have been popping up after searching the keyword ‘abortion’ — results which have been misleading and tricking women into someplace else entirely.
In an article written by BBC News, “Anti-Abortion Groups Target Women with Misleading Ad’s”, health and disinformation reporter Rachel Schraer writes about a young woman, Hana, and her experience with these “fake clinic” ads’. As a 19-year old college student, she knew she wanted to have an abortion. However, the search results lead her to an anti-abortion advice center, where the employees were persistent on talking Hana out of it. She was told – and the article described the information as “inaccurate” – that abortion can lead to breast cancer, and infertility. The center also added that since Hana was vaccinated for COVID-19, the abortion might not be necessary. The article argued, though, that enough evidence shows that the vaccine does not make people have a higher risk of miscarriage, and in fact helps “against the risks of pre-term and still birth associated with Covid.”
The news article “Lawmakers urge Google to fix abortion searches suggesting ‘fake clinics’” mentions that a cited report from the lawmakers recently reveals that 11 percent of search results for abortion services lead to nonmedical facilities, let alone ones that provide abortion services. In addition, 28% of suggestions that appear on top of the page lead to antiabortion advice centers. In the letter sent to Sundar Pichai, democratic leaders stated that misleading information can be “dangerous to women’s health and undermine the integrity of Google’s search results”.
In addition, the lawmakers added, the ads were sent after Google pledged to remove ads for the “fake clinics” which violated the company’s policy against deceptive advertising, which was also disapproving.
“When Google screws up, it can have an enormous impact on the whole world,” Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said. And it was true — more than 90% of the global market share is retained by Google. “People have a right to hold an opinion on Abortion,” Ahmed says. “It’s [their] use of deception that makes it so malignant. This is just another example of how hate and disinformation factors can weaponize digital platforms to cause real world harm to people.”