Dear Friend,
As we said, even just a few months ago Google Images searches for basic anatomical terms did not yield scientific drawings but instead returned endless pages of images of and links to hardcore pornography in Google Images. Innocent phrases like “happy black teens” returned results of sexual abuse and torture. Tragically, we’ve even heard of school children being exposed to degrading and graphic sexual content through Google Images while doing research for school. But now, after you helped take action through the Dirty Dozen List, Google Images has improved many search term results to reduce unwanted exposure to pornography!
This is an important step forward because many search term results are significantly improved from what they were even two months ago.
At the same time, in the interest of protecting you and your family, we want to clarify and re-emphasize that Google Images can still show harmful content. Google Images will still yield many hypersexualized images, and some images with bare breasts, and if one types in search terms frequently used in porn it will yield some hardcore images as well. Google Images is still far from perfect, so even as we celebrate the progress we encourage you to remain vigilant in your home! Whenever children are online, they should be monitored by an adult—preferably a parent whenever possible.
Additionally, there is clearly still more work to do with Google and so we encourage you to use these Actions right now to help grow the momentum:
- Sign this petition to thank Google for these improvements
- Send an email to Google to let them know that they still need to do more!
- Help spread the word to families around you the need for diligence in safety online. We have many resources here through the CESE Safeguard Alliance.
- Consider a financial gift to help us continue our work in creating safer spaces for all online!
Thank you for being diligent and watchful on this matter and for joining with us where you can!
