Exclusive: Live Action Sends Legal Challenge to Big Tech Over Censorship

September 9th, 2019 10:24 AM

Big Tech companies are facing their day of reckoning from the Pro-Life movement.

Leading pro-life organization Live Action has gone through its fair share of confrontations with Big Tech, and now is taking the fight to the next level. 

In early September, Live Action’s attorneys sent cease and desist letters to YouTube and Pinterest. These letters accused them of suppressing content and breaching contracts, which resulted in money loss and damaged reputations.

Speaking exclusively with NewsBusters TechWatch, Live Action leader Lila Rose spoke with enthusiasm about the upcoming legal battle. In a best case scenario where the case goes to court and they win, she hoped for Big Tech companies to actually be held to standards of “integrity and fairness” to the point where they do not interfere with information and “people can make up their own minds.”

Free speech lawyer Harmeet Dhillon and Dhillon Law Group drafted two cease and desist letters to YouTube and Pinterest respectively for what appears to be viewpoint discrimination on their platforms. And “monetary damages and injunctive relief are available pursuant to these causes of action, and will be sought in court if this matter cannot be promptly resolved." 

Pinterest is a social media platform used to create online scrapbooks out of images from across the internet. The cease and desist letter sent to it remarked how Pinterest placed Live Action on a blacklist among pornographic sites, blocking the pro-life group’s content from being shared on the platform.

“Our fight should be with the abortion industry” she said, as opposed to the Big Tech middlemen who are acting as “defenders of the abortion industry.”

Like many in the conservative movement who are concerned about Big Tech bias, this goes beyond the small-government dogmas of free market conservatism. Now that Big Tech corporations, not government, are cracking down on free speech, the game has fundamentally changed. If this case is dropped or unsuccessful, Rose said either Congress or the White House should get involved. 

In order to confront Big Tech bias and censorship, she said people need to pick their battles carefully. She stressed that people need to only focus on the best, most defensible evidence of bias in order to avoid a “boy who cried wolf” scenario where Big Tech can point to bad examples as an excuse to pretend Big Tech meddling is a myth altogether. 

What makes Live Action a great case its that it has “clear cut evidence” of numerous kinds ranging from whistleblower testimonies to noticing how Big Tech companies will allow Planned Parenthood while spurning pro-life organizations. Rose stressed the fact that her company has meticulously followed the Terms of Service put forth by these tech companies, and that they are acting purely for political reasons. 

No matter what the future holds, Rose and her crew remain resolute about their mission, which she says is growing in support by the day and will move to other platforms if it has to, “Live Action is never going to stop educating the nation and saving lives.”