#Bikukwatako: How Algorithms Shape and Impact Narratives On Abortion Information, Rights and Care for Womxn in Uganda.
By Diana Karungi (Program Manager, HerInternet)
It was an early Wednesday morning that Namaganda, a 21 year old female student based in Kampala was hit by a realization that she had missed her period for the second month in a row. She slowly creeped out of her bed, got dressed and made a quick dash to a well stocked pharmacy situated right across her hostel to buy some self testing pregnancy strips.
Back in her room after waiting nervously for a few minutes, a faint line showed on a pregnancy test strip that Namaganda was holding in her slightly shaking her hand. She felt her world internally take a quick unexpected shift.
However, she was not too quick to panic immediately even when worry started to set in into her mind and heart as she thought about all the worst case scenarios that could happen to a pregnant second year student already struggling with raising tution while working a small time job in a “kafunda” just to make ends meet.
Namaganda’s first intuition wasn’t to call her bestie, nor her mother or boyfriend. She just got her phone, turned on her data and typed into a search bar of her favourite social media app… “Safe abortion in Uganda”. All she needed was reliable and helpful information on where and how she can access safe abortion services. But that’s not what she found.
The dramatic warnings on how abortion was a grave moral offense and religious sin as many girls were dying in clinics every day. The content that flooded her phone screen intensified her fear rather than calm. The high engagement on such false and harmful content received more than thousands of angry and disagreeable comments followed with numerous shares. The algorithm had decided and prioritised life treatening and intimidating content for Namaganda. She failed to access right and accurate information on abortion care and rights since it had been drowned by sensationalized harmful and false narratives online. Other helpful content had been flagged or shadowbanned as it contained words like “abortion” and “SRHR”, therefore, the information that Namaganda needed and searched for barely reached her feed resulting into critical limited access to credible and right SRHR information
Another extra search exposed Namaganda to more shaming anti-abortion posts and victim blaming “testimonies” which frightened her more through targeted religious content and mocking memes. Each scroll only depressed her more as she felt so alone in her situation because of the coordinated online harassment, endless stigma and disinformation campaigns by anti-rights and anti-gender groups that she witnessed amplified by the algorithm. The right information and credible sources of support were silenced at the wrong time as Namaganda couldn’t find them online. The only choice that Namaganda was left with was triggered by a memory… a rumor that she heard circulating around her village back home in Bukomansibi. There was a woman said to be a “local nurse” who could helped “campusers” or “school girls” like herself to get rid of any unwanted pregnacy. It wasn’t safe. Yes, it was risky. Namaganda had heard news about some of her old school mates who died during the process. But, what other choice was left if the algorithm never let her find theright and accurate information to support her in a vulnerable time of fear and uncertainity? The algorithm barely gave her a chance.