Statement on President Biden’s Action to Protect Online Privacy and Combat Reproductive Health Misinformation

For Immediate Release
July 8, 2022
Contact: press@accountabletech.org

Accountable Tech co-founder and executive director Nicole Gill released the following statement today praising President Biden’s Executive Order Protecting Access to Reproductive Health Care Services, which includes critical steps to combat misinformation and protect online privacy:

“No one should be tracked and targeted for making personal health decisions – but that’s exactly what Big Tech is designed to do. Big Tech monopolies rely on a surveillance advertising business model, which gives them massive stockpiles of intimate personal data that can be used to harass or prosecute people seeking abortion. And they’re not just selling our data – they’re pushing lies for profit. These companies make money by boosting outrageous and divisive content, which means that as long as it keeps users clicking, they’ll supercharge dangerous misinformation that puts our health, lives, and democracy at risk.

“We’re grateful to President Biden for taking these necessary steps to help protect patients and keep Big Tech from profiting off the criminalization of reproductive health care. But until we fully address their toxic business model, Big Tech monopolies will continue to threaten our safety and personal liberties – both online and off.”

Accountable Tech has been among many organizations warning of the dire threat posed by Big Tech monopolies – and particularly Big Tech’s dangerous surveillance advertising business model – in our new post-Roe reality.

To date, Big Tech companies have largely (if quietly) allowed disinformation and misinformation about reproductive healthcare, including by boosting inaccurate posts that correlate abortion with cancer, to actively profiting off ads for fake medical procedures called “abortion reversals,” Since Roe v. Wade was overturned two weeks ago, these same companies are censoring posts about how to access abortions and demoting or rejecting ads for real abortion clinics.

For more information on President Biden’s Executive Order, please see here.

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