Wikipedia, Google, Facebook...should we use them if they permit pro-abortion material?

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nahbios

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If a web-resource permits pro-abortion messages and suppresses pro-life ones, should we by right avoid using them altogether? My head says we are not obliged to avoid them - as we are not directly supporting abortion by using them - but it still means that their pro-pro-abortion tendencies continue and could worsen with our inaction.

I would love to hear opinions on this. Thanks in advance! 🙂
 
nahbios said:
If a web-resource permits pro-abortion messages and suppresses pro-life ones, should we by right avoid using them altogether? My head says we are not obliged to avoid them - as we are not directly supporting abortion by using them - but it still means that their pro-pro-abortion tendencies continue and could worsen with our inaction.

I would love to hear opinions on this. Thanks in advance! 🙂
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What do you mean by “suppresses prolife messages” ?

Google directs me to prolife websites. Facebook allows prolife pages. Wikipedia has a prolife entry.

I don’t see any suppression…🤷
 
:confused: I have “liked” several pro-life pages on Facebook so I don’t see how …
 
I would say that this is more of a matter of allowing freedom of speech than actually denying your beliefs. If google, for example, ONLY showed pro-choice websites, and wouldn’t come up with results for pro-life people, then I would probably find a different search engine. However, they don’t really lean one way or the other to my knowledge. As long as a site allows both arguments equally, then I’d say that is just an expression of good ole’ fashioned American freedom! Just be careful not to use explicitly anti-catholic, pro-choice, ect. websites and you should be good.
 
I am pro-life and I extensively use Wikipedia, Google, and Facebook.

I am aware of general pro-abortion bias systemic to the companies which operate these services as well as the users of those same services, yet I use Facebook as a platform for some quite aggressive pro-life activism and I am not aware of any suppression of viewpoints there.

I am not aware of any suppression of viewpoints on Google+ or other Google services, but I avoid Google+ as basically all the “early adopters” there were really annoying radical liberals who would not appreciate my pro-life stance anyway.

Wikipedia is another story. Wikipedia has an extremely strict policy of NPOV - Neutral Point-of-View. It is supposed to present all mainstream viewpoints equally without endorsing any of them. However, I find that like many online communities, there is a liberal, atheist, pro-abortion, anti-Christian bias in the userbase there. I feel that my presence there is especially needed as a foil and a check on the possibility of that kind of bias creeping into articles. However, since abortion is one of the topmost controversial topics there and subject to general sanctions, I recuse myself from editing in that topic. I also refrain from substantive editing in theologically deep articles because my knowledge of the prevailing scholarship, except for general Catholic teaching, is low. So I am afraid that I am not very effective in this area. But I would welcome anyone who wishes to try their hand at editing Wikipedia and I would be glad to mentor you or show you the ropes if you come, because I believe it is very worthwhile and the project definitely needs more Catholics and more conservatives.
 
I don’t think avoiding them is a good idea. If you are strongly pro-life, you can visit their websites to learn their arguments, find the errors in them, and help educate “pro-choice” people. But if you are weak in faith or sort of on the fence I wouldn’t recommend it because their logic is poor and weak-faithed people often get sucked into it.
 
I have a google story that may help illustrate this suppression the OP mentioned. I looked up “righteous gentile” and “Jews” one day to find out if Jews think everyone else can be saved or not. I got a google message saying “we know some of this material may be offensive to you. It is to us too” and blah, blah, blah.

Then I looked up Rick Santorum. I bet you know where I’m going with this story. The truly vile and offensive post by the activist was there, but no warnings, no it offends us too.

I am suspicious of google, but I haven’t found a better search engine, unfortunately.
 
littlenothing said:
I have a google story that may help illustrate this suppression the OP mentioned. I looked up “righteous gentile” and “Jews” one day to find out if Jews think everyone else can be saved or not. I got a google message saying “we know some of this material may be offensive to you. It is to us too” and blah, blah, blah.

Then I looked up Rick Santorum. I bet you know where I’m going with this story. The truly vile and offensive post by the activist was there, but no warnings, no it offends us too.

I am suspicious of google, but I haven’t found a better search engine, unfortunately.
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Does that have anything to do with Google directly though? According to the infallible source that is “howstuffworks” whether or not certain pages come up is related to “the frequency and location of keywords within the Web page, how long the Web page has existed, and the number of other Web pages that link to the page .”

computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/google1.htm

I don’t think Google is actively trying to undermine Rick Santorum
 
Alder said:
Does that have anything to do with Google directly though? According to the infallible source that is “howstuffworks” whether or not certain pages come up is related to “the frequency and location of keywords within the Web page, how long the Web page has existed, and the number of other Web pages that link to the page .”

computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/google1.htm

I don’t think Google is actively trying to undermine Rick Santorum
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Ah SEO… even now, the job of figuring you out hunts me down despite it being a Sunday.

In addition to what you’ve posted, I would also add that the recent Penguin updates has every web content writer ripping the hairs out of their heads. Why?

Well actually it’s because Google is now hitting harder against those into link and keyword stuffing. Therefore, more original and substantial content makes it up the results.

If anti-Santorum folks were getting a lot of exposure, it only means they knew how to spam keywords or they actually just blog more.
 
It seems to me that Google had a debacle on their hands relating directly to specific searches for the word “Jew” and they had to do some backpedaling in order not to offend an entire race of understandably sensitive people. This is in contrast to Rick Santorum, a controversial political candidate who happens to be the target of a vicious one-man campaign of defamation. Rick Santorum is one man, his supporters are not necessarily members of a protected race or religion, and the hate campaign against him is feeble and decidedly transparent. If I were Google, I wouldn’t be apologizing for every possible offensive search result, but I would sit up and take notice if all Jews were offended. Rather big difference in my eyes.
 
One can avoid newspapers, magazines and things like that, but there is a limit to the avoiding. Maybe the chef in the restaurant is an abortionist, or that person that sells you clothes, or the people living in your same building…

Blessings!

🙂
 
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