Pinterest bans pro-life group Live Action, blocks it as porn site; Bible verses also banned
The pro-life group Live Action is slamming Pinterest for “trying to secretly and dishonestly censor free expression” after the popular photo sharing site permanently banned the advocacy organization for allegedly promoting “harmful misinformation."
On Tuesday, an anonymous whistleblower at the company told Project Veritas that Pinterest added “LiveAction.org” to its “pornography block list,” meaning users could no longer create pins that link to “LiveAction.org.”
Additionally, “Bible verses” and other Christian terms also are listed on Pinterest's offensive terms list, a list that employees add terms to manually.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
When confronted, Pinterest informed Live Action its page was “permanently suspended because its contents went against our policies on misinformation,” Live Action reported. The note went on to claim Live Action spreads “medical misinformation and conspiracies that turn individuals and facilities into targets for harassment and violence.”
In a statement made available to The Christian Post, Live Action founder and president Lila Rose said the organization has “more questions than answers about Pinterest’s censorship of Live Action and the pro-life message.”
“Based on the evidence provided, it appears that Pinterest intentionally added ‘LiveAction.org’ to a ‘pornography’ blocklist in an effort to suppress our pro-life content from being shared on the platform,” she said.
Rose said that by secretly applying the label of pornography to Live Action’s pro-life content, Pinterest “demonstrates a concerted effort to sideline a leading pro-life organization the only way they knew how.”
“This does not appear to be a simple mistake,” she continued. “When confronted with an appeal, their employees doubled down and kept LiveAction.org on the pornography list. What exactly is Pinterest attempting to block? Inspirational messages to pregnant mothers, ultrasound images showing the science of prenatal development, medically accurate information on the abortion procedure, and images saying women deserve better than abortion industry leader Planned Parenthood.”
Pinterest has targeted Live Action, Rose said, “because our message is so effective at educating millions about the humanity of the preborn child and the injustice of abortion.”
Live Action noted that, after testing the website, the organization was unable to create pins from their own website, but was able to create pins to other pro-life websites and create pins to pro-abortion websites like Planned Parenthood.
“Pinterest says that their mission is to ‘help empower people to discover things that they love,’ but despite the fact that millions of people love babies and the pro-life cause, they are secretly censoring our life-affirming messages,” Rose warned. “Pinterest users deserve to know the truth and our messages deserve to be treated fairly. If Planned Parenthood can promote their message on Pinterest, then Live Action should be able to as well.”
Pinterest trying to secretly and dishonestly censor free expression is “every Pinterester’s worst nightmare,” she concluded, adding: “We urge them to allow free expression on their platform and to stop censoring Live Action’s pro-life message.”
Live Action, which was previously censored by Twitter and YouTube, is now asking people to sign a petition urging Pinterest to “live up to the stated values of your company and the spirit of the First Amendment with consistency and end the suppression of opinions affirming life and human dignity.”
Live Action is not the only pro-life organization censored by Pinterest: the Catholic advocacy group American Life League announced via Twitter it was also “shut out of Pinterest last year.”
According to the whistleblower, someone at Pinterest also added pro-life activist “David Daleiden/Planned Parenthood” to a list of conspiracy theories that it monitors. Daleiden released an undercover video exposing Planned Parenthood for harvesting aborted baby body parts and illegally selling them.
