Timeline: Censorship of Pro-life Speech by Big Tech
Public record shows that big tech companies have exhibited a pattern of censoring pro-life speech, some going so far as to ban pro-life accounts altogether. Meanwhile, pro-abortion groups enjoy the services that these social media platforms provide, reaching millions of Americans every day to promote abortion extremism.
2023
March 27, 2023
Facebook and Politifact “fact check” Alliance Defending Freedom and SBA Pro-Life America’s posts about abortion pill complications, rating them “partly false,” despite the fact that the Politifact affirms the statistic in its own article:
Researchers reported that about 20% of the women who took medication for their abortions experienced what the paper described as adverse events or complications.
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2022
August 23, 2022
Yelp re-evaluated thousands of search results for pro-life pregnancy centers and successfully censored 470 of them and flagged them for being “too pro-life.” Google followed by placing Planned Parenthood at the top of its search results for anything related to abortion.
May-July 2022
Google shadowbanned[31] Life Issues Institute’s online educational campaign in May, and later, after the release of the Dobbs decision, prohibited their videos outright, labeling them “speculative and experimental medical treatment, cell therapies and gene therapies.” The videos (1, 2) share scientific facts (from doctors) and testimony (from those affected by abortion, including former abortionists, abortion survivors, and parents.
June 23, 2022
TikTok permanently banned[30] SBA Pro-Life America’s account without giving warning, vaguely citing “Community Guidelines.” The ban occurred shortly after the Supreme Court released its decision in the Dobbs case and the account remained inaccessible throughout the day. The account was later reinstated, again without explanation.
2021
September 19, 2021
Google banned[29] all of Live Action & Heartbeat International’s Abortion Pill Reversal ads, as well as all of Live Action’s ads – including those for Baby Olivia, which depict the growth of a baby in the womb with highly detailed, scientifically accurate images. Google cited “unreliable claims” as their reasoning.
September 2, 2021
Domain hosting service GoDaddy dropped[28] Texas Right to Life’s website about the Texas Heartbeat Act following an online harassment campaign from pro-choice activists. GoDaddy’s reasoning, according to the email notification they sent to Texas Right to Life, was that the organization had violated GoDaddy’s terms of service. They did not specify which terms were violated or how.
January 11, 2021
Ann and Phelim, producers of the movie “Gosnell” and hosts of The Ann and Phelim Scoop podcast, are suspended from Twitter for “platform manipulation and spam.” The account was reinstated after they appealed the suspension
January, 2021
In early January 2021, Twitter removed tens of thousands of followers from leading pro-life groups, while the follower counts of Big Abortion lobby groups continued to rise. SBA List lost more than 12% of its followers during this purge. Of the groups tracked, pro-life groups lost a total of more than 82,000 followers while Big Abortion lobby groups increased by over 11,000 followers.
2020
October 14, 2020
Facebook restricts Choose Life Marketing’s account citing a violation of Facebook’s advertising policies. Choose Life could find no policies that they had violated and submitted a request to have their account reviewed. They received a notice, with no explanation for the restrictions, saying that it could take weeks for them to receive an answer. [25]
October 14, 2020
Facebook censors LifeNews, labeling as “False Information” their tweet about Kamala Harris’ persecution of pro-lifers who exposed Planned Parenthood selling baby parts, and “significantly reducing” the number of people who see the post. [24]
August 7, 2020
Youtube deletes one of Live Action’s abortion procedures videos, which had over 1.8 million views and had been live since 2016. Youtube claimed the video, which includes medically accurate animations of abortion & is narrated by a former abortionist, violated “multiple community guidelines.” The video was reinstated after Live Action appealed, but YouTube did not explain why it was initially taken down, claiming it was “a mistake by our automated systems.” [23]
2019
February 20, 2019
Facebook censors an SBA List/Charlotte Lozier Institute education campaign highlighting the benefits of adult stem cell transplants, stating that the video included “shocking, sensational, or excessively violent content, which could create an unexpected experience for users.”
January 14, 2019
Youtube removed one of Live Action‘s investigative videos exposing Planned Parenthood aiding and abetting the sex trafficking of young girl, saying the video violated “Community Guidelines.”[19]
2018
December 2018
Youtube buries Live Action’s educational, medically accurate videos after a pro-abortion writer for Slate complained the videos were “dangerous misinformation.” [16]
November 1, 2018
Facebook censors SBA List ad promoting Marsha Blackburn for Senate, citing their policy that disallows “low quality ads” that could “withhold or exaggerate information to entice people to click on the ad.” That same day, Facebook also censored a similar SBA List ad supporting Matt Rosendale for Senator against abortion extremist Jon Tester.[15][14]
October 30, 2018
Facebook censors ad promoted by allied group of SBA List promoting candidate Kim Reynolds for Governor.
October 15, 2018
Facebook censors SBA List “Charlotte” ad for the second time, for violation of its policy against promoting sensational/graphic content. [9]
October 12, 2018
Facebook censors Charlotte Lozier Institute educational video on late-term abortion, featuring Charlotte, who was born at 24 weeks old. Facebook cited violation of its policy against promoting sensational/graphic content.[8]
October 9, 2018
Facebook censors Charlotte Lozier Institute educational video on late-term abortion, featuring Micah Pickering, who was born at 22 weeks old. Facebook cited violation of its policy against promoting sensational/graphic content.[7]
2018
YouTube demonetizes Live Action and bans paid ads on the grounds that their “pro-life educational and political content” could be qualified as “pornographic.[6]
2017
October 18, 2017
Twitter takes down then-candidate for TN Senate Marsha Blackburn’s campaign ad, which included a statement about her work to stop Planned Parenthood’s sale of baby body parts.[5]
May 18, 2017
Twitter permanently bans Live Action from running ads on their platform unless they removed content deemed to be inappropriate. The ads included information about fetal development and celebrated the lives of unborn children. Other ads and tweets fact-checked Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.
April 12, 2017
SBA List is informed by Twitter that it is ineligible to participate in Twitter ad promotion after tweeting about its campaign to urge Mark Meadows to pass a health care bill to defund Planned Parenthood and end taxpayer funding of abortion. Twitter cited its Health and Pharmaceutical Products and Services Policy. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood promoted a similar tweet in March of 2017.
March 5, 2017
SBA List attempts to promote four tweets by its president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, on the #daywithoutawoman. Twitter rejects all four tweets, citing violation of their Health and Pharmaceutical Products and Services Policy. The tweets promote a day without abortion, and state that abortion is profoundly anti-woman.[4][3][2][1]
2015
2015
Twitter bans Live Action and President Lila Rose’s personal account from running paid advertisements due to their use of ultrasound images, criticism of the abortion industry, and advocating to end taxpayer-funded abortion.