Tracking and combating the rise of false online information about abortion

John Yang:

Supreme Court said last night that the abortion medication mifepristone will remain available while the challenge to a lower court order that it'd be taken off the market works its way through the legal system. This later — latest chapter in the legal fight over abortion access comes as researchers are examining the vast amount of online misinformation and disinformation about abortion.

Jenna Sherman is with me, Meedan Digital Health Lab, a technology nonprofit that works just strengthen journalism and digital literacy. She's also a researcher at Harvard's TH Chan School of Public Health. Jenna, I know that at Meedan you recently looked at what happened with online misinformation and disinformation around last year's leak of both the leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion. And then when the actual opinion came out, overturning Roe, what did you find?

Jenna Sherman, Meedan Digital Health Lab:

Yes. Thanks so much, John. Yeah, so we wanted to understand how actual volume of mis and disinformation changed about abortion online. So we went through hundreds of tweets from before the leak and the decision and then after the leak and decision. And what we found is that the percentage of tweets containing misinformation stayed the same. And you might be thinking, well, if it stayed the same, that's not very significant.

But what's important to keep in mind here is that the noise around abortion online was extraordinarily high. So the percentage saying the same actually indicated that the volume of misinformation skyrocketed, following both the leak and the decision and then quickly fell within a few days already making an impact and already causing harm most likely.

John Yang:

Did you see the same thing? You know, mifepristone has been in the headlines for the last two weeks since that ruling in Texas? Have you seen the same thing?

Jenna Sherman:

Absolutely, John. We have been seeing the same thing. We predicted that mis and disinformation around medication abortion would increase after originally the leak and then the decision because it really has become the new battlefront for anti-abortion activists in their fight against abortion to end all forms of abortion.

And we have seen their tactics become really successful online as we've seen claims circulating that exaggerate the harms of medication abortion, that use very shoddy and in many cases, non-rigorous science, and the do a lot of fear mongering and stigmatizing around people who are considering using medication abortion in a manner that is unjustified based on the scientific literature.

And what's really concerning to me, John, is that we are seeing many of those same claims in the actual legal appeals themselves, the ruling that the Texas judge put forth that I looked at, had at least 20 unique, false or misleading claims that were mis aligned with scientific consensus. And that's just an example of the cycle that we're in where mis and disinformation online, gets baked into our legal and policy decisions, and then bolsters the missing disinformation online and the cycle continues.

John Yang:

What you're talking about seems to have been coming from the anti-abortion forces. Is there anything coming? Do you see any misinformation or disinformation coming from abortion rights supporters?

Jenna Sherman:

It's a great question. So well, we have found observationally that most disinformation which is intentionally spread, false and misleading content comes from more conservative leaning anti-abortion groups and individuals.

Misinformation is really spread across the ideological spectrum. So some examples of claims that have been put across on social media by folks who are really on the side for abortion rights have been, for instance, claims around being able to use herbs or natural remedies to safely induce abortion, which is not scientifically evidenced, and also downplaying really legitimate risks of abortion. And this just goes to show how politicized and subjectively perceived this abortion debate is and how it really confounds the public debate.

John Yang:

How, what can people do about this? And does the burden fall on the social media platforms? Or does it fall on the user's social media users to be careful about what they read?

Jenna Sherman:

Absolutely, we're of the opinion that the onus should really first and foremost be on the tech companies and the social media platforms. There is a role for individual users to play but what platforms should really be focusing on is using a both reactive approach and proactive approach and parallel, a lot of the arguments around, you know, monitoring and moderating abortion content or any content online is that it's limiting free speech.

Well, in that argument, we're mostly talking about takedowns and shadow bans, and that is one really small tool in a really large toolbox. But we really need to be focusing on is a parallel approach where we do some takedowns and at the same time, are proactively giving people medically sound context for the type of information that they're consuming, you know, we should really be empowering users to be, you know, be more ethical, conscious and informed consumers of content online. And especially now given what we found in this report to pay extra attention to potential misleading content in the wake of really large public debates, news events and legal decisions.

John Yang:

How do you combat the fact that I think people are prone to accept and believe arguments that bolster what they already believe?

Jenna Sherman:

It's a challenge. And I think that the tricky part of it is that the online space is not a very — it's not a space that's very adept to being critical and consuming content in a nuanced way. I think, you know, what people need to do, including myself, including all of us is approach, especially medical claims with a really objective viewpoint, no matter what your belief is, whether you're for abortion or against abortion, we all have, you know, the responsibility to be conscious consumers when it comes to health information.

John Yang:

Jenna Sherman of the Meedan Digital Health Lab at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, thank you very much.

Jenna Sherman:

Thank you, John.