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That’s a problem because most of what you find online, including social media, is inaccurate and dangerous. Researchers say abortion misinformation — like Tik Tok videos falsely claiming abortion can be self-induced by plants — is spreading.
Tech companies need to step in quickly to point people who need abortions to the right information and protect their privacy in the process.
Abortion misinformation is already rampant online. Published in PLOS ONE Information that is considered “high quality and usable”. Among the search results are sites that try to dissuade women from having abortions in the first place.
It’s scary to think that people looking for reliable information can find links to dangerous pills, unsafe home recipes, or underground abortion providers.
But it may not be immediately obvious to women seeking wealth that the misinformation they receive is wrong or dangerous. Studies have shown that people have a hard time distinguishing what is called “fake news” in normal situations – and we can expect that people who want an abortion are already upset, stressed and afraid, which makes them think more clearly and remember to investigate. The reliability of their sources. So internet platforms should help them.
Just as social networks have tried to combat fake news about pro-choice and vaccinations, information centers should create information centers for people seeking abortions by creating links to accurate information. The resource centers should provide links to accurate and legal information, including their nearest legal abortion providers and information on how to obtain abortions from legal companies.
When the legality of helping women seek abortions is unclear, companies may be putting themselves at risk by directing women to reliable resources. For example, Texas law allows anyone who “aids and abets” a woman seeking an abortion to be prosecuted. But Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects Internet platforms from being sued for the content they host or moderate, giving social media companies a strong legal argument to stand on. And finally, social media platforms — and search engine technology companies like Google — must have a backbone where they can take risks to protect the lives of their users.
Of course, a big difference between the sources of information that social networking sites have created in the past on other topics and the sources of information that can be created for abortion information is that abortion resource platforms must be designed with privacy in mind. In states where it’s illegal, women who have abortions can be prosecuted using data from their apps or phones or other digital records held by tech companies.
Technology companies should not keep records of anyone who uses abortion resource centers — nor should they record abortion-related information or other searches for abortion providers. Google thankfully says it doesn’t store this kind of location data, but that’s just the beginning of steps the company — and others — take to help and protect their users.
There is still a risk that women could be sued by subpoenaing data from their phones to law enforcement officers. Therefore, the resource centers should explain in simple and easy-to-follow ways how women can permanently delete evidence of their searches from their personal devices, as well as the information entered in apps such as period trackers.
Tech companies like Meta and Google are trying to support abortion rights by offering to pay travel expenses for their employees who travel to other states to meet their employees. However, so far, they haven’t done enough to support their users, who we can expect will increasingly go online as they search for resources. That is unacceptable.
Especially when you consider that women are the majority of users of platforms like Facebook and Instagram, the fact that technology companies are not stepping up to provide the information they need for people seeking abortions is a cause for concern.
Social networks and search engines need to start proactively directing people seeking abortions to the right information – and help them clear their search logs. Women should not wait until they are dead or seriously harm themselves based on misinformation they find online before taking action.
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