“When you Google “abortion,” the top results are relatively staid considering the divisiveness of the topic in American life. There’s a link to information about the procedure from Planned Parenthood, a Google map of nearby abortion providers, a link to an overview of anti-abortion and pro-choice arguments from the nonpartisan procon.org, and links to various news sources like the New York Times and the New Yorker…
“If, until recently, you did the same over on Google-owned YouTube, it felt like you were searching in a whole other universe. Before I raised the issue with YouTube late last week, the top search results for “abortion” on the site were almost all anti-abortion – and frequently misleading. One top result was a clip called “Live Abortion Video on Display,” which over the course of a gory two minutes shows images of a formed fetus’ tiny feet resting in a pool of blood… Only two of the top 15 results struck me as not particularly political, and none of the top results focused on providing dispassionate, up-to-date medical information…
“I emailed YouTube… asking why anti-abortion videos saturated the search results for ‘abortion’, and if the platform thought accurate, health-focused information had a place there. By Monday morning, before the company got back to me, the search results had changed…
“Why this matters is that more than 1.8 billion people look for information on YouTube every month… There are plenty of videos from credible reproductive healthcare providers on YouTube, but none of those videos surfaced in the top 20 results for “abortion” – both before I asked about it and now…”
FULL REPORT: Slate, by April Glaser, 21 December 2018