Updated Thursday, 11:48am: After this article was published, Twitter suspended the account of Bryan Kemper and asked him to delete the tweet of his shown below. Kemper has appealed the suspension.
Twitter suspended two pro-life accounts this week, telling the associated users that they had violated the platform’s rules against “abusive behavior.”
Pro-life San Francisco (@prolifesf) as well as the account of Eric Cochran (@Eric_Cochran), a supporter who retweeted the Pro-life San Francisco, have been suspended since February 13 for sharing already-public information about the criminal case against David Daleiden, the undercover journalist who filmed Planned Parenthood executives apparently haggling over the price of fetal body parts.
Twitter asked Terrisa Bukovinac, who runs the Pro-life San Francisco account, to delete her tweets naming the 14 individuals Daleiden and his partner Sandra Merritt filmed. Their names have been publicly available on the Internet since 2017, but they are named as “Does” one through 14 in the felony case against Daleiden, People of the State of California vs. David Robert Daleiden, Sandra Merritt.
Bukovinac appealed the suspension and received a message from Twitter that the account has exhibited “suspicious behavior” that violates the rules.
“The ‘Does’ have made their own identities known by speaking publicly about the case and their own involvement,” Bukovinac told National Review. “Twitter’s selective targeting of our organization is either pure viewpoint discrimination or a pathetic submission to pressure from Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation.”
“We do not tolerate behavior that crosses the line into abuse,” read Twitter’s response to Cochran, who also appealed his suspension. “This includes behavior that harasses, intimidates, or uses fear to silence another person’s voice.”
However, the social-media giant did not suspend the account of Bryan Kemper, a pro-life activist and the director of youth outreach at Priests for Life, who retweeted an article with the same information.
“I think it’s obvious that Twitter doesn’t truly recognize free speech by the way they target accounts of pro-life and conservative leaders,” Kemper told National Review. “Twitter is censoring something that is simply public knowledge. They are allowing Pro-life San Francisco to be bullied and trying to silence them. It must be a targeted attack as I have tweeted out the exact same information and gotten no problems from Twitter even though my tweet got way more attention.”
https://twitter.com/BryanKemper/status/1095821801865777154
“The more Twitter censors the louder we will be with the truth,” Kemper added. “The pro-abortion forces are afraid because they know this is the generation that will abolish abortion and they are fighting any way they can to try and slow us down.”