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Social Media can be a very effective forum for raising awareness for just causes like reproductive justice. The broad reach to the social masses can be a very powerful tool in helping to influence the outcomes of unjust rulings or political agendas. Earlier this year, an 18yr old man convicted of rape was released on grounds by a judge that the man had served enough time and he decided to throughout the conviction. With the help of online petitions, effective raising awareness on social media on this ruling, the judge was reassigned. However, as effective as social media can be for reproductive justice issues, it can also be used as a forum for spreading misinformation about the topic which can negatively impact gaining support behind the issue.
Reproductive Justice is a subject to the most misinformation on social media. Many internet companies have been known to accept advertising money from groups that spread this misinformation and these companies need to do a better job of removing posts with false information. As a result of this misinformation, people who rely on the internet and social media could be misguided when making decisions about reproductive health. The Center for Countering Digital Hate reported that from January 2020 to September 2021, Facebook alone accepted up to $140,000 for 92 ads promoting “abortion pill reversal.” In addition to ads, search engine results also create misleading information about abortion. In 2021, a study found that of the top 5 results for “abortion pill” on Google, only one result had information that was scientifically accurate.Three of the results were from anti-abortion groups spreading misinformation about abortion pills.There was another study that found that more than half of the web pages on abortion by Google had misinformation that could change a person’s decision to have one advocated by anti-abortion groups.The problem is that most major social media platforms do not have abortion-specific misinformation policies.
This false information also has broader repercussions. Voters’ choices for leaders and politicians nowadays are greatly influenced by issues of reproductive justice, hence the distribution of false information may have a significant impact on those choices. The issue of access to abortion was one of the key voting issues in the midterm elections. Misinformation on the internet could result in unsupported political beliefs that could have an impact on the election of future leaders in the absence of background information and additional research. This is why programs addressing the significance of reproductive justice should be established in the health sections of classes to ensure that there is also appropriate access to truthful information regarding abortion access. Not only this, but social media companies and the internet in general have to start prioritizing and filtering out misinformation in general. While there is a lot of gray area on how to achieve this, the first step is by individually educating yourself and spreading that knowledge onto others. An extremely common way misinformation spreads is through copying links, or even just verbally passing on information to somebody. However, it’s important to do proper research before spreading pieces of information that can be both sensitive and half a large impact on society. Social media can be an amazing resource to rally and support other women, and reproductive justice campaigns, however, we all need to make sure that the information we are getting is accurate so that we can make proper decisions when it comes to reproductive justice policy.
