Pro-life activist blasts media bias at White House summit on big tech censorship
A prominent pro-life activist President Trump highlighted at the White House this week is calling out media bias amid increased focus on the censorship of conservative viewpoints by big tech companies.
Speaking at a summit on social media censorship in the East Room of the White House on Thursday, Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action, said that for four years her pro-life organization has been barred from doing any advertising on Twitter while Planned Parenthood is allowed to do so with ease.
"They told us that in order to reinstate our accounts we'd have to stop calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood and stop sharing our pro-life content," Rose said before hundreds of conservative-leaning activists, internet personalities, news outlets, and think-tanks in attendance.
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The pro-life group that is known for its undercover investigations and for its criticism of Planned Parenthood, which had falsely claimed its clinics provided mammograms after accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from breast cancer groups, such as the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
Similarly, the group has been critical of Planned Parenthood for not offering services to pregnant women who want to give birth to their babies instead of having an abortion.
Pinterest also recently permanently suspended Live Action's account, accusing the organization of spreading false information. Major news outlets then printed Pinterest's claims as factual, Rose said Thursday. Abortion rights groups, including clinics, face no such hindrances on the site, she said.
Although Live Action's videos are highly viewed on YouTube, the video streaming service has buried their content while boosting videos supportive of abortion, the pro-life activist added.
"So this double standard and bias is a growing problem in big tech, even though they say that they are politically neutral and they don't discriminate. They even testified before Congress and said that," she said as she thanked the president.
Reporting on the White House summit, NPR — a federal tax-payer funded news outlet that is supposed to provide unbiased reporting — originally published out an article with the headline, "Far-right personalities head to White House," which was subsequently changed to "Trump To Invite Social Media Companies To 'Big Meeting' To Discuss Censorship"
"How on earth is @NPR still receiving government funding?" Rose asked on Twitter.
"They are a highly-biased, activist media group that regularly twists narratives on abortion, conservative ideals, and anything that challenges their far-left ideology. NOT objective 'news.'"
Washington Post national correspondent Philip Bump joined NPR in claiming that there is no evidence that big tech is systematically targeting conservatives unfairly for their beliefs. He reported that the president did not invite the tech companies nor more controversial figures that have been banned from their platforms. The summit on big tech bias, Bump asserted, was an extension of Trump's penchant for provoking and annoying the mass media.
Yet Rose said that The Washington Post's analysis was itself biased, noting in a separate thread that the outlet had previously reported on Twitter's blocking of their content in 2017, and though it was framed in favor of abortion rights, referenced the social media giant requiring them to stop calling for Planned Parenthood to be defunded and showing images of ultrasounds.
"It is baffling to me that @washingtonpost continues to pretend there is no pro-abortion bias at platforms like @Twitter, @Pinterest, @YouTube. The evidence is clear, blatant, obvious. Is this [because] WAPO's editorial board is pro-abortion? Why the total lack of journalistic integrity?" Rose said in another tweet.
Lila Rose founded Live Action in 2003 when she was 15 years old. She is now expecting her first child.
