In the wake of Rev. Louis Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic rant posted to his social media accounts, one would think Facebook and Twitter had just stopped ensuring “healthy conversation.” But it turns out this isn’t the case.
Choice42, a Canadian pro-life organization, told LifeNews on October 17 that their posts were being taken down by Facebook. Founder and Director Laura Klassen received a notification from Facebook that her post was taken down because it went against “Community Standards on hate speech.”
The post was a photo that the organization had made with the caption, “Whenever a group of people is denied their humanity, we have a problem.” There were three images in the meme: a slave, Holocaust survivors, and an unborn fetus in the womb. This photo was apparently hate speech.
Another of the group’s posts, a video called “Louise’s Story,” was also censored by Facebook. It showed a young woman who was raped, conceived and chose to keep her baby. Klassen stated, “There was nothing graphic or disturbing in the video.”
Twitter has also prevented Choice42 from promoting their tweets in the same way that the platform prevented the pro-life group LiveAction from promotions. Twitter told Choice42 that their tweets were “ineligible for promotion” until all of their “anti-abortion” tweets were taken down.
Facebook has followed suit, prohibiting an ad for a link that was titled, “Unplanned Pregnancy? Need Help?”
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Klassen claims that all of her inquiries to Facebook were ignored.
A press inquiry sent to Twitter went ignored.
Facebook responded to an inquiry from MRC Techwatch and claimed that Choice42 had not appealed their post being taken down. However, Laura Klassen claims she sent an appeal immediately following the post’s removal. Choice42 is also not allowed to run pro-life ads on Facebook.
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