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The Googlization of Health: Invasiveness and corporate responsibility in media discourses on Facebook's algorithmic programme for suicide prevention

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  • Broer, Tineke

Abstract

Big tech companies increasingly play a role in the domain of health. Also called the “Googlization of Health”, this phenomenon is often studied by drawing on the notion of ‘hostile worlds’, where market values and common goods are incommensurable. Yet, the ‘hostile worlds’ theory is not uncontested; scholars for instance argue that the justifications of big tech companies are important analytical considerations as well. Building on this literature, in this paper I report on a case study of Facebook employing AI for suicide prevention, moving beyond Facebook's justifications only to study the ways in which media commentators and their audiences discussed Facebook's programme and the values they saw as being at stake. In the results, I show how invasiveness was, in different ways and forms, a main theme in thinking about Facebook using AI to do suicide prevention. Commentators and readers alike discussed how: 1) Facebook takes corporate responsibility with this initiative, or alternatively Facebook only has commercial interests and uses the notion of ‘public good’ to transgress spheres and sectors even further, thus being invasive; 2) Facebook's AI suicide prevention programme is invasive in relation to privacy and privacy laws, or, instead, people give up their privacy willingly in exchange for entertainment; 3) The programme undermines, rather than enhances, safety; 4) Suicide prevention in itself is already invasive. These different forms of invasiveness, I argue in the conclusion, also imply responsibility for different actors, from AI itself to Facebook through to medical professionals. Moreover, they show what values are at stake in, and transformed through, Facebook's AI suicide prevention programme, going beyond the frames of privacy and surveillance capitalism.

Suggested Citation

  • Broer, Tineke, 2022. "The Googlization of Health: Invasiveness and corporate responsibility in media discourses on Facebook's algorithmic programme for suicide prevention," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 306(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:306:y:2022:i:c:s0277953622004373
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115131
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Jennifer White & Jonathan Morris, 2019. "Re-Thinking Ethics and Politics in Suicide Prevention: Bringing Narrative Ideas into Dialogue with Critical Suicide Studies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(18), pages 1-13, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Reilley, Jacob & Pflueger, Dane & Huber, Christian, 2024. "A typology of evaluative health platforms: Commercial interests and their implications for patient voice," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 350(C).

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