Analysis: Google Maps in the US regularly misleads people looking for abortion providers, instead pointing them towards non-medical crisis pregnancy centers
Chey was a 19-year-old college sophomore living near Orlando, Florida, when she discovered she was pregnant and decided to have an abortion. Tweets: @daveyalba , @daveyalba , @jackgillum , @davidjoachim , @parmy , @parmy , @wexler , @annmarie , and @parmy Tweets: Davey Alba / @daveyalba : NEW: @jackgillum and I analyzed 510 Google Maps entries from all 50 states + DC after you type the words “abortion clinic” into the Maps app; about a fourth of all results were actually crisis pregnancy centers. w/ @cedricsam https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/... Davey Alba / @daveyalba : The harm that this causes isn't theoretical. My colleagues and I spoke to 33 abortion care providers, reproductive justice and digital rights experts — as well as women who sought abortions using Google Maps who were then directed to CPCs, like Chey. https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/... Jack Gillum / @jackgillum : NEW: Post-Roe, Google Maps is giving misleading results for abortion clinics — returning crisis pregnancy centers 1/4 of the time. Said one patient: “I searched it, and I went there. That was what the computer said it was.” w/ @daveyalba + @cedricsam https://www.bloomberg.com/... David S. Joachim / @davidjoachim : NEW: Google Maps routinely misleads people looking for abortion providers, sending them instead to a crisis pregnancy center — a non-medical org w/ a mission to encourage women to go thru w/ their unwanted pregnancies https://www.bloomberg.com/... @daveyalba @cedricsam @business https://twitter.com/... Parmy Olson / @parmy : Google responds in the story by saying it has a policy against businesses misrepresenting themselves and that it relies on people reporting the ones that lie. But for such a high-stakes issue the company clearly needs to do its own investigating to ensure results are accurate. Parmy Olson / @parmy : Crazy stat: a Bloomberg analysis found 25% of all searches for “abortion clinic” in Google Maps leads to groups steering women AWAY from abortion in the U.S. https://www.bloomberg.com/... via @daveyalba @jackgillum Nu Wexler / @wexler : This is a familiar pattern for online content moderation. Bad actors game an open system with misinfo/abuse/spam, then conservative political groups warn platforms against enforcing their rules. https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/... Annmarie Hordern / @annmarie : Google Maps routinely misleads people looking for abortion providers, per a new analysis by @business. When users type the words “abortion clinic” into the Maps search bar, crisis pregnancy centers account for about a quarter of the top 10 results on avg. https://www.bloomberg.com/... Parmy Olson / @parmy : That's a large, troubling discrepancy. People rely on Google for unbiased information, and many women use Maps to see what clinics are close to home. But in Arkansas, South Carolina and Idaho, pro-life groups make up half the top 10 results for “abortion clinic.” Insane.