From the BBC:
Google is to change its policy on adverts about abortion following a legal challenge from a Christian pressure group.
It had refused a Christian Institute advert, saying it did not allow the advertising of websites with “abortion and religion-related content”.
The institute threatened to use British equality laws to contest the decision.
But after an out-of-court settlement, Google will now allow religious groups to advertise about abortion.
It means when the word “abortion” is typed into the search engine, internet users will no longer just see adverts with details of abortion clinics and support groups, but could also find links to religious groups which may oppose abortion.
[...]“Following the review we have decided to amend our policy, creating a level playing field and enabling religious associations to place ads on abortion in a factual way.”
So, my question is where do we complain when the information presented isn’t factual?
Someone just tried to put a link on my site that said an abortion is when a doctor chops a fetus into tiny pieces inside your uterus and then leaves it to die in a pan before flushing the still-alive remains down the toilet. And people were discussing it, like this was a fact and not a gross distortion of what actually happens. (Key point one: it involves suction at that point in the development.)
I don’t mind religious folks advertising to try to help women in their way- offering adoption services, support, prayer circles, whatever. Some women might actually need that.
What I do mind is lying about the procedure and spreading misinformation.
I don’t know when Google is going to shift their policy (a search I just ran only produces advertisements for clinics) but I know I’ll be watching.
{ 31 comments }
Someone just tried to put a link on my site that said an abortion is when a doctor chops a fetus into tiny pieces inside your uterus and then leaves it to die in a pan before flushing the still-alive remains down the toilet.
Is the pan in my uterus? Because that sounds terribly uncomfortable.
I think they chop first, and then stick it in the pan, before they flush. I was like where do they have room to chop at a microscopic organism thingy? They were like 6 week old babies can flinch! They feel the pain! They die alone! In the pan and in the toilet! And, of course, they blamed in on Obama.
So, these fetuses who die in the pan come back to life so that their living remains may be flushed?
Ok, so you’re an anti-abortion group who wants to pay for ads on Google tied to the word “abortion.” You sue Google (a popular and, in some circles, even loved company) and force them to change their business practices so that you can intentionally lie. Sound like a great idea, all the way up until you remember that this is the internet, you’ve just pissed off people who get kind of protective over their rights and the freedom of the internet, people who don’t like being lied to, people who are passionate or bored and utterly anonymous.
Why on earth would they volunteer to be DDoS’d like that?
Google is a private company. Why shouldn’t they have the right to refuse a sale?
I was going to respond with a snark about how obviously Obama wants people to have abortions, but I realized that people actually believe that kind of shit. Ugh.
I am honestly surprised that Google used to refuse religion-based abortion ads. When feministing first started using Google ads, several posts about abortion ended up with ad links to crisis pregnancy centers and other tricky anti-abortion sites (I think they’ve been working to prevent that now. I know they ask for heads-up when hinky ads get through). I assumed that Google took money from anyone who wanted an ad. If that much junk was going through already I wonder how many more deceptive ads there will be when the new policy goes into effect.
Good point, William. Why on earth would they volunteer to be DDoS’d like that?
*cough*
Wow. I really do love America’s first amendment when I read stuff like this. Equality laws in the UK? Hate speech laws in Canada? Blasphemy against the pope in Italy? Religious toleration in France? United Nations Screw ‘em.
Google should be allowed to enforce any rules they like. Just like Feministe. That’s the American way, which means its a universal good.
Catnik, the reason to be concerned about what Google does, is that although it is a private company it is approaching (and seeking to approach) being a public service.
Its ubiquity and usefulness has major effects on many public interests. The more Google succeeds in its goal of being ubiquitous and relied upon by many, the more seriously we should take its responsibilities towards the public.
we regulate private companies over what they ingredients they can put in our food, because we think the health of our food supply is important. In the same way, we regulate many aspects of communication when we think they have public effects (even if it is fewer regulations in the US than in other places). We especially regulate things that act like infrastructure – the networks on which other people and businesses rely. Google’s search engine is a major information infrastructure.
So that’s why it’s worth considering regulation.
Well, I think what Google advertises is a matter for some sort of advertising standards agency, and actually I think advertising prayer groups is fine, but advertising sites that spread misinformation about abortion – that just shouldn’t happen.
What’s really frustrating here, though, is the idea that allowing people who want women to think abortion is about turning your unborn foetus pancetta and then feeding it to a circle of priestesses in a sacrificial rite (embroidering a little there) is somehow promoting a more ‘equal balance’ of views on the question of abortion. Which is like saying that religion and medicine have the same purpose and are separate mutually-exclusive doctrines. Well, first off they’re not doctrines, secondly they’re not mutually-exclusive, thirdly they serve completely different purposes and answer totally different sets of questions, they come to totally different conclusions on totally different topics using totally different methods.
The whole ’science vs religion’ thing is incredibly frustrating. I remember growing up in a world where the Theory of Evolution was accepted. I mean, I might look to theology for certain things, even as an atheist, but I wouldn’t take the Bible to be a biology manual, just like I wouldn’t rely on the works of Mary Daly to tell me whether I should go to the doctor should I find a lump in my gonads.
Wow. That’s one hell of a fetus if it can survive being chopped into tiny pieces and dying in a pan before being flushed. Any fetus that can survive death twice probably shouldn’t be flushed since it will no doubt survive that, too, and will grow and start to breed in the sewers.
Wow. That’s one hell of a fetus if it can survive being chopped into tiny pieces and dying in a pan before being flushed. Any fetus that can survive death twice probably shouldn’t be flushed since it will no doubt survive that, too, and will grow and start to breed in the sewers.
My thoughts too. Maybe that lady gave birth to one of the brooms from Fantasia.
You know what we do with witches.
In all seriousness I’m right here with Zenobia: “Which is like saying that religion and medicine have the same purpose and are separate mutually-exclusive doctrines. Well, first off they’re not doctrines, secondly they’re not mutually-exclusive, thirdly they serve completely different purposes and answer totally different sets of questions, they come to totally different conclusions on totally different topics using totally different methods.
The whole ’science vs religion’ thing is incredibly frustrating. I remember growing up in a world where the Theory of Evolution was accepted. I mean, I might look to theology for certain things, even as an atheist, but I wouldn’t take the Bible to be a biology manual…”
Maybe I was ignorant of the culture wars because I was young and wasn’t into politics, but I was born during the Reagan years, supposedly one of the heights of the so-called culture wars, and I don’t remember any of this crazy religious stuff in my community. Not at a visible, tangible level the way it is now. Yes, my community was conservative, but it was conservative in a normal rural way, not in this whackadoodle, the-end-is-nigh kind of way.
I guess that as long as what these anti-abortion ads aren’t factual (which is almost always the case), then Google doesn’t have to worry about anything.
Maybe I was ignorant of the culture wars because I was young and wasn’t into politics, but I was born during the Reagan years, supposedly one of the heights of the so-called culture wars, and I don’t remember any of this crazy religious stuff in my community.
Same here. I went to Catholic Sunday school up until my third year in high school, and I didn’t learn anything about gay people, abortion, or birth control. I don’t think my community is liberal or conservative. I just think they understand that none of that stuff is any of their business.
Manju: Of course Google can enforce any rules they want, being that they are a private company and all. But that also means that we can complain about said rules, and work toward changing them if we can. Free speach, and all.
Also, lying and spreading medically inacurrate information is not necessarily protected under free speach, is it? I mean, I can’t go tell someone that if they take a full bottle of aspirin, they’ll feel totes better! I mean, I have that right ‘cuz it’s free speach, right? Wrong.
Jennifer-I had the same reaction. I was recently trying to research different abortion providers in NYC for a friend and get a more in-depth picture of the pros and cons of different methods and I kept running into these lying stealth sites. The ones I actually looked at that scared and angered me the most were the ones aimed at teenagers that billed themselves as just providing unbiased trufax about abortion, written in these comforting, reassuring tones with a friendly layout and then eventually spewing insane misinformation. I imagined myself as a freaked out teenager trying to figure out what to do, and coming across this dreck, its so evil.
“Manju: Of course Google can enforce any rules they want, being that they are a private company and all. But that also means that we can complain about said rules, and work toward changing them if we can. Free speach, and all.”
Yeah. I agree. I was complaining about the anti-abortion people using British equality laws, whatever that is, to restrict Google’s freedom of speech and press.
“Also, lying and spreading medically inacurrate information is not necessarily protected under free speach, is it? I mean, I can’t go tell someone that if they take a full bottle of aspirin, they’ll feel totes better! I mean, I have that right ‘cuz it’s free speach, right? Wrong.”
Depends. The scenario you just painted would almost certainly not be constitutionally protected here in the US, since you’re putting someone in imminent danger, like fire in a movie theatre.
but spreading inaccurate medical info in and off itself would probably be constitutional, unless its commercial speech (and even then, think of the whole alternative medicine market), since the person on the receiving end of the info has time to consider its accuracy, and the intent is not to harm a particular individual.
I probably don’t have the precise legalistic criteria here, but you get the gist.
Sorry to disappoint some of the ladies here, but Google is a publicly traded company and are subject not only to the SEC but Federal anti-discrimanatory laws as well.
However, Google is a great stock to purchase. I thingk they’re currently trading around $100 a share. Check ‘em out at NASDAQ.com or SEC.gov (for you accountant types)
For all you stock savvy folks, Google’s stock symbol is GOOG.
This is slightly off-topic, but since the post discusses activities by the anti-choice movement, I wanted to call attention to a 2006 book by Professor Randall Balmer of Barnard College (Columbia U.) entitled, “Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America.”
I haven’t read the book, but it is reviewed and excerpted in a 06/23/2006 segment of NPR’s Morning Edition available on NPR’s website (search “Randall Balmer” in the NPR website search engine).
In his book, Randall Balmer discusses the “abortion myth” and how the anti-abortion movement was actually started as a political cover for protecting racial discrimination as practiced by far-right Protestant schools, in response to the January 1975 U.S. Internal Revenue Service ruling that stripped Bob Jones University of tax-exempt status on the grounds that the school practiced racial discrimination.
The excerpt from Balmer’s book that is featured on the cited NPR segment makes for instructive reading about the actual origin of the anti-abortion movement.
Also, lying and spreading medically inacurrate information is not necessarily protected under free speach, is it? I mean, I can’t go tell someone that if they take a full bottle of aspirin, they’ll feel totes better! I mean, I have that right ‘cuz it’s free speach, right? Wrong.
Lies are protected as free speech. Lies in advertising (at least in the US) are a different matter, and can be subject to statutory regulation. As far as medically inaccurate information goes, there’s a lot of gray area and it depends entirely on what you’re talking about (drugs regulated by the FDA versus “supplements”, for example), who’s doing the talking, and in what forum.
“Sorry to disappoint some of the ladies here, but Google is a publicly traded company and are subject not only to the SEC but Federal anti-discrimanatory laws as well”
Not quite sure what you’re saying here, Angela, but SEC regulations don’t really speak to the advertising in question.
Now anti-discriminatory laws clashing with the first amendment is an interesting issue, but not quite settled law yet. The only precedent that comes to mind is the boy scouts refusal to admit homosexuals, which was settled in favor of the scouts first amendment free speech, religion, and association rights over civil rights statutes.
I suppose a religious group being refused advertising space could argue religious discrimination (analogous to a black person not being served at the coffee counter), but I think the bar would be pretty high for them. Brings up many interesting issues though.
I can see discrimination applying if they were refused advertising in terms of ‘No! You bastards should have been fed to the lions centuries ago, rot in hell!’. In other words, if they were refused for being Christian, rather than because of the content.
But surely in this case, what matters is the fact that they’re saying “if you abort your baby, the eeevill abortionist will take a big chopper and cut it into little cubes of bacon, and flavour his spaghetti carbonara with it and the little bits will all individually scream in pain as he chews and swallows them, and then your baby will be poo and live in the sewers as a colony of accursed microscopic smurfs”. I mean, surely depicting members of the medical profession as being baby-murdering satanists is bad enough. Plus, if you could prove that they were playing on the fears and guilt trips of pregnant women on top of it, you know, taking all this into consideration, I wouldn’t have thought it would count as discrimination to tell them to stop it.
Now, disregarding the content of what they say on the grounds of them being Christian and going ‘whatever, you’re Christian, have this ad space’ – I would have thought that would be discrimination against them.
Of course, I have no idea of what the law actually is, but this is how it should be.
Wow, zombie fetus. Just how many times does one have to kill it before it stays dead?
Quoth Angela:
What a bizarre non sequitur. Although maybe it isn’t really a non sequitur, being as it is completely factually inaccurate…
In any case, the answer to the “where do we complain when the information presented isn’t factual?” is http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=adfeedback
If you lose that url, you can find it again by doing a google search for “ad policy violation” which will lead you to a google page dedicated to answering the question “How can I report an inappropriate Google ad that I saw on a site?”. That page contains instructions and links to the feedback form.
In fact, that’s what happened, but the religious group in question sued in the UK where the free speech legal landscape is very different from what it is in the US.
Oh, and an addendum to my last comment:
Any views expressed in my comments on this thread are mine alone, and not those of my employer, its affiliates, etc. Do not treat anything I say here about AdWords as official answer.
It really is unfortunate that Scientology got Gigaloader shut down after the last big Anonymous DDoS. Still, I’m sure some motivated people could find all the “stress testing” tools and proxies they needed to make a statement to people providing false medical information.
Not that anyone should do that. DDoS attacks are illegal after all.
Thanks, Daniel. You have given us a valuable link. Now we need to keep an eye on those ads.
Thanks Daniel for that info on how you could complain about ads on Google. Like someone else pointed out, internet giants are monopolies. They’re now utilities, and they’re privatized. So it’s important to engage them on that level. I’ve been recently exploring Facebook to use at work (I work at a university). Lot’s of problems with Facebook that most people ignore or don’t recognize, from privacy and security issues, to a crappy interface, to the ideology of the owner.
See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook
Neocons on a Board, made up of only 3 people, one of whom, Peter Thiel, wrote “The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford”
I feel empowered when I play the capitalist game my way. I don’t work in retail or private service industry anymore but when I did, we took complainers seriously, because we knew they were representative. Now it’s called feedback. I consider my feedback very valuable and I dish it out selectively. It’s always based on problems. I only do it when it’s convenient and I don’t feel obliged to give pats on backs. I’ll buy stocks for that.
I like Google products because they work really well. I’ll have to start paying attention now to them differently, because I spend lots of time online professionally and privately and have become oblivious to static text-based ads. I think I’ve conditioned my visual attention to ignore them altogether :)
I have found google to be “controlled” so i do not use it much. a better search instument is info .com. even my gmail is controlled.
Comments on this entry are closed.