Pinterest banned anti-abortion group Live Action after they had disabled some of its page features by listing it as a pornographic site.
Alison Centofante, Live Action’s director of external affairs, announced Tuesday morning that the social media company had banned the group after they appealed being listed as a pornographic site.
“@Pinterest appears to have intentionally added ‘LiveAction.org’ to a list of blocked pornography sites,” Centofante said. “Pinterest received an appeal and doubled down, keeping ‘LiveAction.org’ on their pornography blocked list. It appears Live Action is the only pro-life group on this list, at this time.”
Pinterest received an appeal and doubled down, keeping “https://t.co/WLqSFeV3cL” on their pornography blocked list. It appears Live Action is the only pro-life group on this list, at this time.
— Alison H.Centofante (@AlisonHowardC) June 11, 2019
Minutes later, Centofante said the group had been banned from the platform.
“Your account was permanently suspended because its contents went against our policies on misinformation. We don’t allow harmful misinformation on Pinterest. That includes medical misinformation and conspiracies that turn individuals and facilities into targets for harassment or violence,” the social media group said in a statement to Live Action.
DEVELOPING: Live Action now BANNED from Pinterest. pic.twitter.com/tCeH9Mb1xR
— Alison H.Centofante (@AlisonHowardC) June 11, 2019
“Pinterest has targeted Live Action, I believe because our message is so effective at educating millions about the humanity of the preborn child and the injustice of abortion,” Lila Rose, president of Live Action, said in a statement. “Pinterest trying to secretly and dishonestly censor free expression is every Pinterester’s worst nightmare. We urge them to allow free expression on their platform and to stop censoring Live Action’s pro-life message.”
Live Action has been subject to varying levels of censorship on multiple media platforms. Twitter has banned the group from displaying ads on their website and YouTube has demonetized and demoted videos from Live Action and Rose.
Pinterest later said in a statement they had taken action against the group for misinformation but not for porn.
“This domain was actioned for misinformation related to conspiracies and anti-vaccination advice, and not porn. Sometimes our internal tools have legacy names for the technology that enforces some of our policies. This technology was named years ago to combat porn, and has since expanded to a variety of content despite retaining its original internal name. We are updating our internal labeling to make this clear,” the company told the Washington Examiner.
