Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Outrage is growing over newly revealed attempts by Twitter to suppress pro-life messages by blocking a leading pro-life group from purchasing ads or publishing tweets that defend life and call for the defunding of Planned Parenthood.
LiveAction.org is reporting on the censorship which they have been enduring for the past year from Twitter which is refusing to allow them to purchase ads that spread the facts about abortion. The problem has gotten so bad that LiveAction president Lila Rose appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight earlier this week to expose Twitter for its blatant bias against the pro-life message.
The blocking of LiveAction ads “is absolutely on ideological grounds because Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading abortion chain is advertising on Twitter,” Rose told Carlson.
“Live Action which is the leading pro-life platform for the pro-life movement is not allowed to. And the kind of tweets they’re flagging, that they’re calling a violation of their ‘hate and sensitivity policy’ show ultrasound images, they’re fact checks of planned parenthood, or are discussing prenatal life and its beauty. These are the kinds of tweets Twitter is trying to block.”
For example, one blocked tweet said simply, “I’m not a potential human being, I’m a human being with potential.”
Another said, “Because a person’s a person, no matter how small,” which is almost a direct quote from Dr. Seuss!
“This is a platform that is a public company,” Rose said. “This [censorship] is not something they’re telling their shareholders or users that they’re actually going to be blocking the advertisement of pro-life speech. This is something they’ve been keeping a secret but we ‘re trying to get this news out there . . .”
Meanwhile, the abortion industry is getting a free pass and can advertise and tweet all they want on Twitter.
Even more outrageous is how Twitter responded to complaints from LiveAction.
“Twitter asserted that Live Action would need to revamp its entire website, deleting foundational material, or create a brand new website before it would be allowed to advertise,” Rose says on the website.
Lila Rose, president and founder of LiveAction
“Additionally, Twitter insisted that all tweets calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, discussing investigations into Planned Parenthood, and showing ultrasound images of pre-born children would have to be deleted. These are the only conditions under which Twitter has said its suppression will be lifted.”
In an interview with The Washington Times, Rose correctly called these demands “downright Orwellian.”
When The Times confronted Twitter about its rejection of Live Action’s ads, the social media company offered what Rose called “a complete cop-out” to justify its suppression of the pro-life message.
“The Times reported that Twitter not only denied Live Action’s evidence of bias, but also pointed the news agency to how well Twitter works with Susan B. Anthony List, a politically-focused, pro-life women’s group,” Rose writes.
However, SBA List President Majorie Dannenfelser disagreed with Twitter’s claim, telling The Times that when her group tried to promote a tweet quoting Mother Theresa, their ad buy was denied.
The ad said, “Abortion is profoundly anti-woman. Three quarters of its victims are women. Half the babies and all the mothers.”
Twitter denied the ad, making the ludicrous assertion that it violated a policy prohibiting “the promotion of health and pharmaceutical products and services.”
The news of Twitter’s bias has inflamed the Twittersphere with users flooding the site with complaints.
“@Twitter is as bad as the brainwashing mainstream media,” one user wrote. “Allowing Planned Parenthood 2 promote abortion tweets while blocking Pro-Life tweets.”
Another wrote: “@Twitter, I think until you stop censoring news against planned parenthood, maybe I’ll start using Facebook. Dont like it as much, but I’m gone.”
“A social media platform should not be secretly deciding for the public which side of the abortion debate we will be exposed to,” Rose writes. “We, the users of Twitter, have the right to information, and we object to Twitter’s inappropriate control over material — as well as their laughably pathetic attempts to explain how pro-life content is “offensive” and in violation of their policy.”
Lila Rose has never been one to sit on the sidelines wringing her hands, which is one of the reasons she’s featured in our Young Women of Grace study as an example of what a young Catholic woman who embraces her femininity can do for the world. To fight this injustice, she’s launching a national campaign to raise awareness of Twitter’s pro-abortion bias and is asking social media users to flood other platforms with pro-life messages to continue to educate the public about the inhumanity of abortion.
“If Twitter is truly the giant of free expression it claims to be, the publicly-owned company must stop rejecting pro-life ads while willingly partnering with the abortion industry in its ad buys.”
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace® http://www.womenofgrace.com
