With Elon Musk at its helm, it seems like Twitter is moving closer and closer toward being a state-affiliated media platform with its unabashedly conservative-leaning recent decisions as a company. Twitter’s latest troubling behavior is that it seems to be censoring any discussion of “abortion advocacy” from its advertising platform.
North Carolina state Sen. Rachel Hunt is currently a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor in her state. One of her campaign’s central talking points is protecting and restoring reproductive rights to the state, especially after a GOP supermajority in North Carolina was recently able to force a 12-week abortion ban, even though Governor Roy Cooper vetoed it, which will go into effect on July 1.
Hunt’s team reportedly posted her video and boosted it through the Twitter Ads platform but noticed it wasn’t being promoted. According to emails obtained by HuffPo between a contact at Twitter and Hunt’s campaign staff, Twitter told Hunt’s team that the video couldn’t be promoted because it contained content related to “abortion advocacy.”
“Ah yes, the mention of abortion advocacy is the issue here,” the email reportedly reads. The employee said they may have “some good news to share on that front,” soon, so they might be thinking of changing their apparent policy, but that “for now, though, you still won’t be able to message around that topic.”
Here is the extremely non-inflammatory and very safe-for-work content of the video that Hunt posted on that topic (transcribed by HuffPo):
“When Roe v. Wade came to rural America, women woke up to a different world. A world with a bit more time. Little girls were little girls a little longer. Young women had the freedom to stay or go. The word ‘liberty’ was finally being used to talk about our lives. The important decisions didn’t get easier, but they were hers. A move to the city for college, for a career, for life—those dreams didn’t have to end with an unplanned pregnancy.
“I’m running for lieutenant governor because the Republican plan isn’t this year’s 12-week abortion ban ― it’s next year’s total abortion ban. We’re talking about 50 years of precedent. Not just legal precedent, but how three generations of women have lived their lives.”
The video is still up, but Hunt is unable to promote it. “I find it deeply concerning that Twitter considers the topic of protecting our fundamental freedoms as prohibited content,” Hunt told HuffPo. “Regardless, I will continue to focus on sharing my message with voters in every community in every part of the state.”
When I emailed Twitter’s press contact for comment, I got an email of a poop emoji as an automated response, as I knew I would since that’s Twitter policy now, too.
(featured image: Alyssa Shotwell)
