If you've ever used Planned Parenthood for abortion resources, plannedparenthood.com,
your data might have been accessed by a third party company.
Planned Parenthood did just this week end any practices that allowed for
market data research or an access to any of its data.
So rest assured that's ending now.
But the alarm bells were going off for a while, and it is not a good week to have
third party companies accessing data of people seeking abortions, obviously.
It was probably never a good idea in the first place.
Now, we know this because there was an investigation by Lockdown Privacy,
which is an app that stops that kind of tracking.
And they detailed that Planned Parenthood, for example,
was sharing this kind of information with Google, TikTok, Hotjar.
Things like an IP address, a site visited, behavior on the site,
reason for visiting, user's selected method of abortion.
The time zone, your zip code, time stamp, whether you went came to
Planned Parenthood through a search engine or you typed it indirectly, client ID.
I mean, honestly,
all stuff that on a regular day surfing the Internet, let's be real.
Most of us are getting our data tracked around.
Now, this is just another reason why we need protections as citizens,
as people who use the Internet, as people who want autonomy over our own bodies.
But Lockdown Privacy said, and this was from the founder, says, it was shocking.
We've analyzed and reviewed the tracking behaviors of hundreds of apps and
websites, it's rare to see this degree of carelessness with sensitive health data.
Let's give you know Planned Parenthood a chance to weigh in.
So let's jump to graphic, for they said, let's be clear,
no scheduling or protected health information PHI has been breached.
Out of an abundance of caution, Planned Parenthood will suspend marketing pixels
on web pages related to abortion searches, and
will be engaging with Meta/Facebook and other technology companies about
how their policies can better protect people seeking abortion care.
Now, I just wanna remind everyone that this is also a week that Meta and
Facebook have been scrubbing the posts of organizations like Planned Parenthood.
Organizations that are trying to either raise money for or
get resources on how to still obtain an abortion, how to get the Plan C
pllls sent to you if you live in a state where abortion has been banned.
Those have been scrubbed, and a lot of it has to do with, God, who knows?
But them trying to avoid any kinda liability if they are at the other
receiving end of a lawsuit cuz they don't have the money,
they're just Meta and Google.
But I wanted to get you guys initial thoughts before I give you sort of why
this matters, why this is so important.
>> Yeah, so there's as usual couple of issues here.
First, HIPPA is a law that's supposed to protect your medical privacy.
So if they go to Planned Parenthood without a court order and they say,
all right, give me their medical files, Planned Parenthood can say no.
Even with a court order, they might be able to say no.
It's a little bit complicated that particular law, but
it's pretty strong protections.
But if you're going to Planned Parenthood's website or
any other website and they have these trackers that almost all the sites have,
then other people can then get around HIPAA and just grab that information from
the third parties because of the way that the Internet works.
And so that is not protected by HIPAA.
That is why this is an issue.
But it's an issue only because we now live in, well, at least,
some of us do in fascist states.
So where they would say, what is a woman doing?
She's going to do something to her own body with,
we don't want her to have that freedom.
The state now owns their body, and we'll tell them what to do with it.
My God, we've found a way to track them so we can track their every movement.
And then if we think they're violating,
they're doing something to their body that the government,
the tyrannical government has decided they're not allowed to do to their body.
We'll snatch them up, put them in jail, and
make sure we take their freedom away for good.
None of this would ever be an issue if the right wing wasn't fascist to
begin with and trying to take it away women's freedoms and
literally use their bodies for government purpose.
In 2015, Julia Angwin published a book called Dragnet Nation,
and in it, I mean, this was several years ago now.
She warned about future problems with mass data collection in the private sector,
because Congress, as you all know and viewers all know, is very slow to
catch up with developing technology and they often don't understand it.
I don't think, I would say a majority of Congress doesn't understand most social
media platforms in general, let alone the data collection behind it.
But she talked about as it intersects with health data, it's totally different
because you can just apply a couple of different layers of data from
different data brokers and you can find out exactly who that person is online.
And I checked to see if she had written about anything in this world, and
she has recently, so I encourage people to read it.
But she said, there are anti-choice groups, geo-fencing clinics,
like Planned Parenthood clinics and other abortion clinics, and
targeting people in those clinics with false information and
ads trying to dissuade them from exercising their own bodily autonomy.
That is such an invasive tactic for a deeply personal decision.
And again, Congress could regulate how companies can access your health data and
how they can sell it and deal with it and whatever.
But the problem is they don't understand it.
We have a really slow archaic congress.
>> And to speak to both of those points.
The idea that this is a right wing tactic and the idea that Congress doesn't know
what they're talking about when it comes to the Internet,
I want to point you guys to a little bit more information.
So the National Right to Life Committee has released model legislation that
criminalizes providing or hosting information or
assistance on how to get a medical abortion.
It specifically says that anti-choice laws must be written to prevent
state residents from seeking abortions in states where it is legal to do so.
And this law is likely to pass in several states.
In other words, we're going to put the clampdown on the information spreading,
which happens through the Internet.
Anyone utilizing that information, putting in their own information in order
to prevent people from traveling to states where abortion is still legal.
And again, we know that this is something the Biden administration, the one thing
that they're trying to combat against is protecting the right of people to travel.
But it speaks to, and let's jump down to graphic, saying about,
the ways that we misunderstand Section 230, which has been used.
It is really the last line of defense, according to this article, in keeping
reproductive health care support information and fundraising online.
That does not provide immunity if the platform develops or creates content, and
it does not provide immunity from the enforcement of federal criminal laws.
But crucially, it does protect against criminal liability from state laws.
Okay, so that was a little muddled.
But the idea is it is something that even Democrats have taken aim at because
they believe, for example, in the foster assessed bill that was trying to
combat human trafficking supposedly.
That because these sites were hosting back pages or ads for escorts, that they were
contributing to trafficking of minors, etc., etc., and human trafficking.
So that's why we need to get rid of Section 230 to hold the platforms
accountable.
But no, in fact, people including sex workers, and now you see in reproductive
health, they're like no, Section 230 is super critical because that way
the platforms like Google, like Facebook, they don't face lawsuits.
They can say, look,
this is people spreading information about health care and you can't come after us.
States can't criminalize us for hosting this kind of information, and
we then don't have this sort of ridiculous thing to rest on when we scrub
posts as they're doing right now.
>> Yeah, look, I know Section 230 sounds arcane.
You're literally referring to a very specific section in a giant bill, but
it's super important.
It means that any website, if you take it away, will be liable for
anything that any of their users say.
So if someone on Facebook, on gigantic Facebook puts up a post saying, hey,
this is where you can get an abortion or you can get an abortion pill,
they can say, no, that's it, it's Facebook's fault.
Now, Facebook owes the state of Texas billions of dollars.
Well, what's Facebook gonna do, or any website?
They're gonna say, no, that's it, clamp down,
we're not going to have any information that could help people because
the red states have made it criminal to help people.
So we're gonna end all user comments.
It would destroy the Internet.
And there's honestly a bunch of total idiot Democrats in several different laws
who are trying to take away some of the protection of Section 230.
Idiots, don't do that.
You'll destroy the Internet if you do that.
Now, back to Republicans.
So understand what they're doing.
They're now using the Internet to spy in on every part of your life, trying to
catch if you did something with your own body that the government doesn't want.
I mean, you want to talk about the tyranny of government, the right wing is
constantly about, if a government tyranny comes man, I'm gonna murder everybody.
What are you talking about?
You are government tyranny.
And get a load of these fascists who say, if you made the mistake of ever living
in a red state, we're gonna track you no matter where you go.
We're gonna track you in other states,
we're gonna track you in other countries, and
we're gonna imprison you cuz you made the terrible mistake of living in a red state.
And we're just gonna make sure that you could never exercise freedom over
your own body, it's disgusting.
>> Cuz we believe in small government.
>> Yeah, small government might ask all of your Republicans,
admit right now that you love big government.
You love it.
Even if you don't think it's tyrannical, you're like, no,
I have to protect zygotes.
Zygotes are the most important people that aren't people.
Okay, fine, but you can't say that it isn't big government to say you can't
decide what to do with your body.
The government, giant government decides what to do with your body.
And we track you down if you ever disagree with the government,
and put you in jail if you ever dare or you try to go to a state that has freedom.
>> I think transpoint about Siesta Foster is a good one.
And I wanna remind people that only one Democrat in the Senate voted against, and
that was Ron Wyden.
And he's pretty good on tech bills because he hired somebody who used to be at
the ACLU, who is just a technologist.
That's his entire life is just thinking about these things critically.
Christopher Soghoian, who I admire and respect greatly,
has advised him on all of these bills, so he's making smart votes.
No other Democrat voted voted no on it.
And like Fran said, it pushed sex workers into much more unsafe
situations because they couldn't get their clients anymore.
So however you feel about sex work in general,
we don't want people to be in danger because of a dumb move by Congress.
But that's the consequence of not having people who understand what they're dealing
with legislating on these issues.
>> Yeah, I have to bring in two more pieces of context before we leave this
story.
Just so you guys know, the Department of Health and Human Services this week
did issue a statement sort of clarifying that engine alluded to this earlier.
But in the absence of a mandate enforceable in a court of law, and
in the absence of sort of basically a court order to get your medical records.
The Privacy Rule's permission to disclose protected health information for
law enforcement purposes does not permit the disclosure to law enforcement or
a hospital or other health care providers work force member chose to
report an individual's abortion or other reproductive health care.
So there's no requirement from health care workers to
report an abortion or alleged abortion.
So they clarify that.
Sadly, they also clarified something else.
And this is what we're talking.
We're talking about Internet data. We're talking about our privacy.
The department warned patients that data collected by third-party apps,
such as period trackers, such as potentially Planned Parenthood,
is not protected health information under federal rules and
could be shared with other entities.
Guys, I'm pregnant right now.
I have flow.
It's an app, you like track the big,
you're like the baby as big as corn on the cob or something stupid like that.
And I'm terrified where you're like these are apps that
regularly feed third-party entities all of your data.
So of course, I'm not gonna use it anymore as cute as that is to know that there's
the size of a corn on the cob.
>> No, I gotta say one last thing here.
Francesca and anyone else who's pregnant, do not travel to a red state.
And because Fran is planning to have the baby, and that's a great choice.
But what if something goes wrong?
What if you have health complications later, and
you have to take some normal medical procedure?
If you went through a red state, they could track you through the apps, and then
potentially look to imprison you because you made the disastrous decision to
step foot in a fascist state that doesn't allow you to control your own body.
No, these are super scary times.
>> Yes, very much so.
Everyone donate to abortionfunds.org, please.
>> Yeah.
>> There's a fundraiser happening tomorrow.
Ariana Vagos, friend of ours and TYT is doing a fundraiser for
the Texas Equal Access fund to protect abortionrights.com.
You can donate now.