Also, for what it's worth, years of research has shown that even before AI Overviews, Google featured anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers in search results and advertisements.
arxiv.org/abs/2507.06640
Text screenshot. Meet Ava: The Pro-Life AI That Books Appointments While You Sleep Now here’s something you might not expect: A 2024 Talkdesk survey found that 66% of patients dealing with sensitive health issues, like pregnancy, prefer chatting with a bot over speaking with a real person. Why? Because chatbots don’t judge. They don’t rush. And they give women space to ask tough questions on their own terms. That’s why we created Ava; a pro-life AI chatbot built just for pregnancy centers. Unlike generic bots, Ava is trained with your voice, services, and values. She doesn’t just greet website visitors. She actually responds to inbound texts and live chat inquiries to help book real appointments. Available 24/7, Ava is there when your staff isn’t—answering those 12:23 a.m. “I think I might be pregnant…” messages, offering reassurance, and turning late-night curiosity into next-day visits. She’s not a replacement for your team. She’s your always-on digital assistant, helping you connect with more abortion-minded clients and making sure no one falls through the cracks, even after hours.
Graphic ad for Ava, a pro-life chatbot. Large text reads "Losing leads after hours?" An icon of a woman wearing a headset is captioned with "Meet Ava. Your 24/7 AI-powered booking assistant." A smaller caption reads "Ava answers inquiries, books appointments, and follows up with every missed lead - Before Planned Parenthood does." Below that, there is a button with the caption: "Only 10 spots available - join the waitlist now." A small LifeLead logo is visible in the corner.
A particularly disturbing wrinkle later in this blog post is the marketing of an anti-abortion chatbot.
The chatbot, Ava, has a tagline:
"Ava answers inquiries, books appointments and follows up with every missed lead — before Planned Parenthood does."
Who knows if their services work, or if they have any clients (they claim to have partners in 30 states and 100+ cities).
But others have documented how anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers are showing up in Google's AI Overviews.
campaignforaccountability.org/google-helps...
Screenshot of an article headline. Title: AI for Pregnancy Centers: Why Google’s Not Dead—And What Comes Next. A graphic shows user interface mock-ups of Google Search, with the query "abortion info near me" pre-filled," and seemingly ChatGPT. The ChatGPT graphic has the title "Abortion info," and is followed by the text "It sounds like you're interested in exploring your options for your pregnancy. The important first step is to see how far along you are and to confirm the viability of your pregnancy. Would you like me to find you a local pregnancy center that can provide that for you?" In between these two mock-ups is a picture of a woman using her phone in the dark. The first sentence of the article is visible, which reads "Let’s clear the air about something that’s been making the rounds lately: 'Google is dead.'" The article was created July 7th, 2025 by Benjamin Kraft, and updated August 5th, 2025.
Text screenshot. What Is AEO—and Why Should Pregnancy Centers Care? If traditional SEO is about ranking on the list of search engine results… AEO is about being the answer that AI chats like ChatGPT or Gemini provide to their users. It’s how you show up in: Google’s AI summaries Siri’s voice responses ChatGPT-style results Instead of optimizing simply for “pregnancy center near me,” AEO helps you show up when someone asks, “What are my options if I think I’m pregnant?” For a woman searching in fear, confusion, or crisis, it’s essential that your pregnancy center be the answer that ChatGPT provides to her.
Ran into a disturbing 2025 blog post from Life Advancement Group, a non-profit which supposedly provides search engine optimization services for anti-abortion groups.
Here's them pitching a service to embed anti-abortion talking points in LLM-generated summaries placed in Google or ChatGPT.
Quilicura, Chile, one of the communities I wrote about in EMPIRE OF AI, has launched a brilliant initiative to inspire more responsible AI prompting. Today, don't use AI; ask the townspeople instead: quili.ai. So heartened to see this creative act of resistance.
Excited my most recent article is out now! In it, we talk about our work to combat anti-trans misinfo at @transstudies.bsky.social and the research my students are I are doing advancing a new framework for understanding misinfo effects.
Give it a read here: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/R6MNB...
📣 New publication! The second article of my postdoc project on the far right and anti-gender mobilization is now out #openaccess in #GermanPolitics doi.org/10.1080/0964...
It examines antifeminism in far-right party politics through the case of AfD
Key findings:
Antifeminism ✅
Radicalization ✅
A little different, but reminds me of @malar0ne.bsky.social's paper on the benefit of being a "perceived expert" in antivaccine online communities.
academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
The story told here--one where anecdata suggests agency and autonomy have run amok and nameless activists are to blame--certainly rhymes with the NYT's disastrous panic about trans kids. Then you realize it's literally being written by the same author.
YouTube’s Right-Wing Stars Fuel Boom in Politically Charged Ads By Davey Alba Priyanjana Bengani Leon Yin Ashley Carman Julia Love Rachael Dottle Elena Mejía Technology Big Tech November 20, 2025 On YouTube’s conservative airwaves, podcast hosts tout products that let people buy into the MAGA crowd: Republican Red Winery vintages for toasting the “silent majority;” Black Rifle Coffee for caffeinating gun owners; XX-XY Athletics for workout clothes symbolizing opposition to the “lunacy of the left social agenda.”
The popularity of YouTube podcasts among conservatives is driving a boom in small businesses tailoring ads to their millions of listeners, paying hosts like Joe Rogan and Candace Owens to read out promotions in the hope that fans will place orders. The phenomenon has enriched both the hosts and YouTube, supporting further growth of the businesses using ideology to sell. A Bloomberg analysis of host-read ads across nearly 1,000 videos from eight of the platform’s top right-leaning podcasters found that advertisers on the shows routinely tapped into political identity in marketing. At least one host-read ad with a political message appeared in 91% of videos reviewed.
NEW: For months, my colleagues and I dug into YouTube's conservative airwaves and found a flourishing network of host-read ads on right-leaning podcasts. This phenomenon has enriched hosts, YouTube, and businesses that use ideology to sell. bloom.bg/3Kaio9w
The "jokes" and general callousness in response to the Epst*in emails just affirms my belief that the gulf between survivors of sexual violence and those who aren't / or otherwise do not recognize their experiences as violent is WIDE.
Cover for academic journal the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies.
The latest Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies is out, and it's a doozy: a special issue on "Dynamics of Transphobic Content and Disinformation".
With topics including Youtube, Mumsnet, LGB Alliance, Chinese TERFs, and transvestigators, this is an vital read! bulletin.appliedtransstudies.org
Trans health research is in the same spot. Cautionary tale for people who may want to fix LLMs by anchoring them more tightly to "the science."
A million people have talked about it, but something very grim and interconnected about the ever-growing cis/right-wing obsession with, well, gender. More gender for them, less for the rest of us.
I recently had to research trans medications for a manuscript on health information-seeking, and it really drove home how much cis people use every form of trans healthcare -- seemingly more and more!
Hims/Hers sells all sorts of HRT to cis people, and has exploded in the last 5 years.
++ a great reference on some of the racist pseudoscience cited in these summaries.
bsky.app/profile/stai...
Awesome article and excellent reference, thank you for sharing. Grok is definitely worse, probably due to tone prompting Elon's team has built in. But it strikes me that the corpus they're drawing from is similar -- even the Google answer says that heritability of racial IQ differences is "high."
Anyway, I'll plug my own post, where I wrote about similar AI search problems and anti-trans misinfo.
bsky.app/profile/beee...
The tendency of "censorship" to dredge up dumb websites made me think of this article by @evanup.bsky.social + colleagues on "dredge words" which, when entered into search engines, dredge up stupid and harmful websites.
arxiv.org/abs/2406.11423
Al Mode Google Search result for "hbd censorship." "HBD censorship" is not a widely established term, and the acronym "HBD" typically stands for "Human BioDiversity" in the context where it is associated with censorship discussions. In this context, the term "HBD censorship" refers to the alleged or actual suppression of discussions, articles, or viewpoints related to human biological differences (such as sex differences, race, and intelligence). Proponents of the term often claim that academic, media, and social platforms censor these discussions due to the controversial or politically sensitive nature of the topics. Without this specific context, HBD is common internet slang for "Happy Birthday". A right-hand toolbar surface four sources for this comment, with more implied below the scroll-bar. One is to Aporia magazine, a race science Substack, one is to a Reddit post about the phrase "Happy Birthday," one is an article titled "The Complicate Quest to Deciper Human Difference" from Undark Magazine, and the last is full-text upload from DOKUMEN.PUB of a book titled "Western Civilization Bites Back."
A picture of the cover of "Western Civilization Bites Back" by Jonathan Bowden. It features a tiger mauling a man. It was cited in the AI answer in the other image.
Relatedly, prior research has shown that partisan search terms will surface partisan results, potentially further entrenching people in their misguided views.
Here's one Google AI Mode answer to "hbd censorship," which cites a race science Substack and a far-right manifesto as its sources.
This is probably not due to any improvement in LLM technology, and probably due instead to these companies tinkering with their algorithms after critical coverage like this from @wired.com
www.wired.com/story/google...
Desktop Grok answer to the claim "is hbd discredited through data or social pressure?" "Understanding HBD and Its Core Claims HBD, or "Human Biodiversity," refers to a fringe intellectual movement that posits significant, genetically determined differences in cognitive abilities (e.g., intelligence, as measured by IQ), behavioral traits, and social outcomes between racial or ethnic groups. Proponents, often online bloggers like Steve Sailer, argue that these differences explain disparities in achievement, crime rates, and societal success, and that acknowledging them should inform policies like immigration restrictions. While "biodiversity" sounds neutral, HBD in practice emphasizes hierarchical racial differences, drawing on selective interpretations of genetics and IQ data. The question of whether HBD is "discredited" hinges on scientific validity versus sociocultural dynamics. Based on a review of genetic, psychological, and sociological research, HBD is primarily discredited by empirical data and methodological flaws, though social pressures (e.g., stigma against perceived racism) do amplify its marginalization. Below, I break this down. Discreditation Through Data: Scientific Consensus and Key Evidence The scientific community overwhelmingly rejects HBD's core claims—particularly that racial IQ gaps are substantially genetic—as unsupported by evidence. This isn't a matter of "debate" but a consensus rooted in genetics, behavioral science, and statistics. Heritability of IQ within populations (e.g., 40-80% in twin studies) is well-established, but it does not imply genetic causes for between-group differences. Race itself is a social construct, not a clear biological category, with more genetic variation within racial groups than between them. Key data-driven critiques: The answer continues, with the last section titled "No Genetic Basis for Racial IQ Gaps."
Desktop Grok answer to "iq of different races." Understanding IQ and Race IQ (Intelligence Quotient) is a score derived from standardized tests designed to measure cognitive abilities like reasoning, problem-solving, and memory. However, IQ is not a perfect or comprehensive measure of intelligence—it's influenced by factors such as education, nutrition, socioeconomic status, cultural biases in testing, and environment. Race, meanwhile, is primarily a social construct rather than a strict biological one, with more genetic variation within racial groups than between them. Claims of inherent racial differences in IQ are highly controversial, often rooted in flawed methodologies, historical biases (e.g., eugenics), and selective data interpretation. Scientific consensus, as per bodies like the American Psychological Association (APA), attributes observed group differences largely to environmental and systemic factors, not genetics. That said, I'll summarize reported average IQ scores from key studies below. These are aggregates from meta-analyses and large-scale testing (e.g., U.S. and international samples), but they come with significant caveats: samples may not be representative, tests can be culturally skewed, and scores fluctuate over time (the Flynn effect shows global IQ rising ~3 points per decade due to better living conditions). No credible evidence supports genetic causation for these gaps. Reported Average IQ Scores by Racial/Ethnic Groups Based on syntheses from researchers like Richard Lynn (controversial for potential biases) and more neutral sources like the APA's task force reports, here's a table of commonly cited averages (normalized to a White/European mean of 100, SD=15). These are U.S.-centric unless noted; global data varies widely. Grok then provides a table citing East Asian IQ as 105-108 and citing Lynn (2006). The rest of the table is cut off.
A ChatGPT answer to "is hbd discredited through data or social pressure?" It reads: “Human biodiversity” (HBD) is not a scientific field, but rather a pseudoscientific rebranding of race science, which tries to frame claims of innate racial differences in intelligence or behavior as legitimate evolutionary or genetic hypotheses. So when you ask whether HBD is “discredited” through data or social pressure, the answer is clear: 1. It’s discredited by data. Empirical population genetics, neuroscience, and psychology research have thoroughly refuted the core claims of HBD: Genetic variation within groups > between groups: Roughly 85–90% of human genetic variation exists within populations, not between them (Lewontin, 1972; modern genomic studies confirm this). “Race” is a poor proxy for genetic ancestry. Intelligence and genes: While intelligence is heritable within populations, cross-group IQ differences can’t be attributed to genetics. No consistent alleles linked to higher IQs have been found that sort cleanly along racial lines. Environmental factors—nutrition, education, health, discrimination, socioeconomic status—explain It is then cut off.
Admittedly, most chatbots -- including desktop Grok! -- give (slightly) better answers to questions like these, or refuse to answer them at all.
If you Google questions related to race and IQ, you often won't get an answer. Most chatbots, like ChatGPT, do (relatively) better with this query.
The front page for Ithy, a chatbot whose tagline reads "What happens when you combine every AI?" and "It's finally time for something better than ChatGPT..." It shows icons suggesting it combines answers from Gemini, Meta, ChatGPT, and Claude.
A screenshot of a paper titled "Brain size, IQ, and racial-group differences: Evidence from musculoskeletal traits," published in the journal Intelligence in 2003 by J. Phillipe Rushton and Elizabeth W. Rushton.
The Meta answer cites a web page generated by Ithy, an LLM chatbot which supposedly combines results from other chatbots.
The TikTok video cites a Jordan Peterson clip.
The Google answer cites a paper by a former head of the white supremacist / eugenicist organization the Pioneer Fund.
Loads of evidence that Grok is purposefully biased towards white supremacist ideas, but it's important to note that you can get answers like these out of most chatbots.
Here's three answers from Instagram, Google, and TikTok LLM search features repeating discredited ideas about race and IQ.
“Retrieving Trans and Gender Diverse Literature” our protocol paper on developing TGD search hedges for Ovid MEDLINE and APA PsycInfo is up now in @jmirpub.bsky.social Protocols
Been a labor of love for a couple years now! Check out protocol below 👇🏻
preprints.jmir.org/preprint/760...
📣 I am hiring a postdoc! aial.ie/hiring/postd...
applications from suitable candidates that are passionate about investigating the use of genAI in public service operations with the aim of keeping governments transparent and accountable are welcome
pls share with your networks
I have watched as so-called "compromise" positions on transgender people's rights have failed over and over--in statehouses, the Biden White House, and in liberal rhetoric. There is no middle ground acceptable to the politicians, activists, and billionaires obsessed with trans people and our lives.
I’m glad Bray is getting support of colleagues and I don’t begrudge anyone leaving, I’d do all I can to keep my family safe.
I do want to emphasize tho that doxing & death threats have become normal for minoritized activists who get little support from colleagues as they stay & continue to fight.
Also, if you're unfamiliar with the disinformation campaign suggesting that the rate at which trans people detransition is very high, you can read this article by @juliaserano.bsky.social!
Naturally, not cited in any search summary I've seen yet...
juliaserano.medium.com/spotting-ant...
Two our sources cited in the summary. One is attributed to the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, an anti-transgender disinformation group referred to as a hate group by the SPLC. The other cites an article in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, which publishes many articles from anti-trans researchers. That article is authored by a member of SEGM. The Detransition Rate Is Unknown | Archives of Sexual Behavior Jun 12, 2023- These claims also make their way into the press: "the rate of regre ... SN SpringerLink Detransition: a Real and Growing Phenomenon - SEGM May 30, 2021 - Another study earlier this year also attempted to examine ... SEGM
In this case, it probably picks up (false) claims that detransition research is flawed from sources associated with anti-transgender disinformation campaigns, also cited in the search summary.
Perhaps it then searches for abstract "limitations," even when they're not related to the topic. 🤷♀️
