Topline
YouTube said Thursday it would take down misinformation associated to abortion on its platform worldwide, together with content material that “offers directions” for unsafe abortion procedures with out scientific help in addition to false claims equivalent to that the process causes infertility, as social media firms battle the unfold of misinformation within the aftermath of the Supreme Court docket’s resolution to overturn Roe v. Wade.
A person watches a clip on YouTube.
Key Details
YouTube prioritizes “connecting folks to content material from authoritative sources on well being subjects,” and can “constantly assessment our insurance policies & merchandise as actual world occasions unfold,” the corporate mentioned in a thread on Twitter.
YouTube additionally plans to connect an data panel to abortion-related content material on the platform to direct viewers to credible sources.
The coverage will come into impact Thursday, and marks an addition to the corporate’s current misinformation insurance policies on Covid-19, vaccine and elections.
Key Background
Consultants have sounded alarms a few spike in misinformation associated to abortion within the wake of the Supreme Court docket’s Roe v. Wade ruling in June. Movies on social media platforms sharing probably harmful methods to induce abortions with herbs have since proliferated on TikTok, Fb, Twitter and YouTube. TikTok has mentioned it’s working to take away movies about abortion that violate its medical misinformation coverage, according to CNN. YouTube, in the meantime, has come below fire from fact-checking organizations in recent times for failing to take sufficient motion to fight the unfold of misinformation on its platform. Google, YouTube’s mother or father firm, pledged earlier this month to routinely delete the placement knowledge of customers who go to abortion clinics after some abortion rights advocates raised issues the info could possibly be used to prosecute those that search to entry abortions in states the place the process is unlawful. Legislation enforcement has ceaselessly turned to Google for knowledge in recent times, executing greater than 40,000 U.S. search warrants and subpoenas for consumer data within the first half of 2020, according to Google.
Additional Studying
YouTube will start removing misinformation related to abortion (CNN)
Abortion bans heighten scrutiny on Google and its user data (Washington Publish)
