YouTube announced on Thursday that it took steps to ban abortion-related misinformation, nearly a month after the US Supreme Court struck down the federal right to voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion).
“Beginning today and for the next few weeks, we will remove content that instructs on unsafe abortion methods or promotes false claims about the dangers of abortion,” a spokeswoman for the platform said.
Google’s video service will add abortion content to its medical misinformation policies, which already ban false or misleading content about Covid or vaccines.
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For example, “it claims that abortions are very risky or that they often cause infertility or cancer,” says the Californian group.
Since the Supreme Court blew up the right to abortion (until now in force throughout the United States since 1973), several conservative states have already restricted or prohibited access to abortion.
Google, Meta (Facebook, Instagram) and others have been questioned several times on this topic by elected officials and associations. They call on the platforms to protect women, ensuring that messages and offers of help remain online and, above all, that they no longer store so much personal data, especially those that could compromise them.
Fear of online data
The platforms fear that the personal information of women who have had abortions or of people who would have helped them (online searches, Uber rides, etc.) will be used against them by prosecutors in conservative states that have banned IVG.
In early July, Google announced that users’ location data would be automatically deleted when visiting an abortion clinic.
Jen Fitzpatrick, vice president of the tech giant, also said that her teams used to “reject” requests from authorities “when they are too long.” YouTube also clarified Thursday that an information panel on abortions would be added, to “give people context from local and international health authorities.”
Source: BFM TV
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