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In a test of the top parental control apps on Google Play, 92% incorrectly blocked at least one LGBTQ or sex education site as “adult content”.
Research conducted by Top 10 VPNs late 2021 found that many parental control apps were blocking the sites of major LGBTQ organizations, including Stonewall, The Trevor Project, and LGBT+ Switchboard.
They did, however, allow young people to see adult sites, including Only Fans, Chatroulette, and even 4Chan.
Top Ten VPN has tested the most popular parental control apps on the Google Play Store. It found that 11 of the 12 apps tested blocked at least one website in the sex education and LGBTQ category.
The apps that blocked the most LGBTQ content were ESET Parental Control and MMGuardian.
These blocked 14 of the 19 sites tested, including trusted UK charities LGBT Foundation, Mermaids, Stonewall and Switchboard LGBT+.
Applications are designed to protect children from extreme, misleading or adult content (excluding adult sites.)
However, overblocking is common, especially with LGBTQ content. This is partly due to advertisers who have always been nervous about being seen alongside LGBTQ content.
Surprisingly, despite blocking many LGBTQ sites, the apps had a 90% failure rate to specifically filter out websites centered on conspiracy theories or misinformation, like InfoWars.
They also had a 73% failure rate for blocking extreme ideological content, such as the “Red Pill” subreddit and the racist far-right British National Party website.
20% of apps also incorrectly blocked educational content on topics from government-recommended websites such as Planned Parenthood and NHS Sexual Health.
“Over-censorship of LGBTQ+ content is a well-documented feature of attempts by private tech companies to filter out ‘safe’ content, whether done through parental control apps or the platforms themselves,” said Siyang Wei. , policy coordinator at the LGBT Foundation. me.
“This not only discriminates against LGBTQ+ content, but prevents young people from accessing information, services and communities that could be vital to their well-being.”
Indeed, it is part of the wider context of legislative change in the UK. A new Online Harms Bill aims to regulate social media and much of the internet. But activists fear that, in its current state, the bill will further worsen the excessive blocking of LGBTQ content:
“As it stands, the government’s online safety bill would further encourage this kind of discriminatory overcensorship and codify it into law,” Wei adds.
“These findings add to the mountain of evidence suggesting that without a clear definition of ‘harm’ and written safeguards developed in consultation with representative organizations and communities, the bill risks promoting rather than preventing harm. to marginalized people.”
Why is it so common for algorithms to filter out LGBTQ content?
Speaking to me last year, anthropologist Mary L. Gray said that AI “will always fail LGBTQ people.”
She thinks it will be up to us to forever ensure that AI reflects us and also reflects how we want our world to be.
“21st century businesses have moved to automation because there is a belief in the power of technology to improve our lives,” Gray told me.
But you only have to look as far back as the stories about dating sites creating a predominantly white and attractive elite, or those about ethnic filters, to see how this optimization rush leaves so much behind. For Gray, it’s up to us to defy those filters.
“Why does it keep showing me the same white faces, what is it? What does it say about my social networks? We can think about any decision-making system. And we can reject that.”
“When AI reduces us to one identity. We can look at that and say no. I am more than that.”
This research is another example of how internet filtering of LGBTQ lives is still present on many platforms.
It’s something that has seen Tumblr, YouTube, and other major players in trouble over the years.
In 2019, YouTube faces lawsuit from suite of LGBTQ vloggers who faced a 75% drop in revenue after YouTube leaked their content. For many, this has seen their videos demonetized, they claim, due to their sexuality.
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