FLASHBACK: Big Tech Displays Its Chronic Pro-Abortion Bias

January 20th, 2023 2:11 PM

The U.S. Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs opinion marked a landmark win in the fight for the life of the preborn. Yet Big Tech has refused to budge on its pro-abortion stance.

Social media platforms have banned, fact-checked and deleted content from the accounts of pro-life advocates and organizations.

With the annual March for Life rally taking place today, let’s not forget Big Tech’s repeated attempts to silence pro-life voices as chronicled in MRC Free Speech America’s exclusive CensorTrack.org database.

Google

  • Google search engine highlighted Planned Parenthood: Anti-American behemoth Google flexed its pro-abortion muscles with its search engine. MRC Free Speech America researchers analyzed Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo search results for the word “pregnancy” in a “clean environment” and discovered Google’s first result showed a link to America’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. This result stood in stark contrast to Bing and DuckDuckGo, which both showed more neutral search results.
  • Google banned Live Action’s ads: Live Action’s founder and president Lila Rose said the tech giant banned Live Action’s pro-life ads. Rose said Google banned the promotion of the organization’s “Baby Olivia” video. Google claimed the video contained “unreliable claims,” according to Rose. Google also reportedly banned the organization’s Abortion Pill Reversal ads. “They aren’t hiding their bias anymore: @Google’s censorship of critical pro-life information shows a blatant double standard & reckless disregard for human life & women's health,” Rose tweeted. “Google must fairly apply its own policies & immediately restore pro-life ads… .”
  • YouTube deleted Created Equal’s video: Google’s pro-abortion bias extended to its video-sharing application YouTube as well. The platform reportedly deleted a video from pro-life nonprofit Created Equal. The video showed the moments inside a delivery room when a mother gave birth to premature twins who were denied care by health professionals and ultimately left to die, according to The Federalist.

TikTok

  • TikTok banned Live Action: Communist Chinese government-tied TikTok banned Live Action founder Lila Rose. Live Action said that TikTok deleted a video showing a woman deciding whether to "be pro-abortion" or to "be pro-life and help save babies." The platform later “permanently banned” the account "due to multiple Community Guidelines violations.” "TikTok allows pro-abortion accounts and videos to remain on the platform, videos like this that simulate brutal harm to preborn or born infants," former Live Action Director of External Affairs, Alison Howard Centofante said in a statement. "This is blatant viewpoint discrimination and an egregious attempt to silence pro-life voices." The platform later claimed the ban was a “mistake” and restored Live Action’s account.
  • TikTok deletes Students for Life chapter’s account: The CCP-linked platform also deactivated the Grand Canyon University Students for Life account. The platform claimed the account was banned because the account didn’t “meet the age requirement to use TikTok,” according to screenshots shared with MRC Free Speech America. The account owner told MRC Free Speech America that she used a date of birth that met the age requirement, but the platform did not allow her to appeal its decision.

Meta (Facebook and Instagram)

  • Instagram suspended Students for Life chapter: Meta-owned Instagram suspended the account of the Students for Life chapter at Auburn University, according to purported screenshots. The platform claimed the account violated the platform’s "Community Guidelines on business integrity." Instagram did not specify how the account violated its Community Guidelines.
  • Facebook censors pro-life posts with fact-check: Meta’s pro-abortion bias reared its head on Facebook as well. Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley and Former HUD Secretary Ben Carson and his wife Candy posted a screenshot of a Lila Rose tweet criticizing a Colorado abortion law that explicitly allowed abortion up to the moment of birth. Facebook used two fact-checks from biased fact-checker networks Lead Stores and PolitiFact in an attempt to discredit the posts and reduce Haley’s and the Carsons’ reach and engagement.

Twitter

  • Twitter censored pro-life account: Twitter joined the pro-life censorship brigade through its nefarious sensitive content filters. Twitter targeted the Pro-Life Action League with an account-level sensitive content flag. No matter how innocent the tweet, Twitter hid the media it posted behind a filter saying, “The following media includes potentially sensitive content.”
  • Twitter locked LifeNews.com’s account: The platform also locked pro–life website LifeNews.com’s account for posting an image of an aborted baby. Twitter removed the post for “[v]iolating [its] rules against posting media depicting gratuitous gore.” LifeNews pointed out the irony in Twitter’s decision in a statement: “If aborted babies are just clumps of cells, why is Twitter so afraid of people seeing pictures of them? Ironically, in its threat to LifeNews, Twitter admitted killing babies in abortions is 'torture,'" LifeNews.com reported.

GoDaddy

  • GoDaddy Reportedly Deplatformed Texas Right to Life Whistleblower Site: Website host GoDaddy tried to achieve relevance by mimicking the pro-abortion censorship  tactics of its Big Tech counterparts. GoDaddy reportedly deplatformed the Texas Right to Life’s “whistleblower” site. The website was designed to report medical officials and offices who continued to carry out abortions after the state’s six-week abortion ban took effect. The company reportedly told The New York Times and The Verge that prolifewhistleblower.com had 24 hours to move to another provider “for violating our terms of service.”

MRC Free Speech America Senior Researcher Heather Moon contributed to this report.

Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.