Twitter has just told pro-life group Live Action that, in order to advertise on the site, it must delete all tweets that Twitter’s management deems “offensive.” The site hasn’t outright censored any of Live Action’s tweets, but it has refused to permit the group to promote its content until it purges all of its “inflammatory” material.
Included under this vast, subjective umbrella are all tweets calling for the federal government to remove Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding, all tweets reporting on Live Action’s undercover investigations into Planned Parenthood’s clinics, and any ultrasound images of unborn children.
Meanwhile, Twitter continues allowing Planned Parenthood to advertise on the site, despite its own patently inflammatory rhetoric. As the Live Action site explains, the abortion group is permitted to call its opponents “extremists” and expound heated political rhetoric in defense of abortion. But, under Twitter’s restrictive new policy targeting Live Action, the pro-life group is no longer permitted to respond to these statements without losing its own advertising privileges.
Twitter has every right to implement whatever policy it deems appropriate, regardless of whether or not its treatment is objectively fair. But this is the latest example of the pervasive bias that the pro-life movement continually runs up against, and fresh evidence of the massive PR advantage that Planned Parenthood and its supporters enjoy when social-media giants readily line up on the side of abortion rights.
Updated 6/29/17 4:15 P.M.: Live Action has just released screenshots of its emails with Twitter management discussing the steps the group would need to take in order to be permitted to advertise on Twitter. In the emails, a Twitter representative confirms that, in order to be eligible for advertising, Live Action would need to delete all tweets related to: the group’s undercover investigations; the Center for Medical Progress undercover investigations; images and videos of abortion procedures, including but not limited to late-term abortions; content related to defunding Planned Parenthood, including petitions; ultrasound images; and any links to sections of the Live Action website containing videos with any of the above content.