POPLINE, a government reproductive health database/search engine, has censored the word "abortion." The search engine turned the word into a stop word. Stop words are words that are excluded in a search engine. Usually words like "and," "it," and "the" are excluded from searches because they would yield pretty much every website out there.
Want to hear something ironic? If you were trying to use the database to argue against abortion, it still wouldn't yield any results. So whoever it was who decided that we shouldn't be reading about the process didn't realize they were also taking away resources for the anti-choice side too.
WAYS TO TAKE QUICK ACTION:
1. Drop a quick comment on their webpage.
2. Call/E-mail the INFO Project P.I. and Project Director:
Professor Jane Bertrand, Principal Investigator
The INFO Project
(410) 659-6300
Earle Lawrence, Project Director
The INFO Project
(410) 659-6300
3. call the Hopkins/Bloomberg School of Public Health, Director of public affairs, Tim Parsons, at 410-955-7619 or email him at tmparson@jhsph.edu.
Tell him that blocking abortion information through POPLINE constitutes political censorship, and is a stain on Johns Hopkins.
Really, this isn't about whether you think abortion is right or wrong. This is an insult to free speech, to net neutrality, and to education, as POPLINE is an educational database.
No comments:
Post a Comment