The virulent anti-abortion group Live Action is really mad at Pinterest right now for censoring them and for marking their posts as “porn.” Pretty obvious spoiler alert: Neither of those things is actually happening.
Live Action has started a petition, which you can see on the more cowardly sites of Facebook and Twitter, asking supporters to “stop Pinterest’s censorship of pro-lifers” after the site permanently banned the organization’s account and flagged them as a way to prevent users from posting their content.
Pinterest recently announced that they would be cracking down on medical misinformation, including anti-vaxxer advice and “false cures for terminal or chronic illnesses.” Because of the nature of Pinterest, this meant that not only could users not create that sort of content, but they couldn’t pin it to their own pages either.
It appears that Live Action has been added to a list of blocked accounts that’s labeled for pornographic accounts. A Pinterest rep told BuzzFeed News that this doesn’t mean Live Action is considered to be pornographic.
“Sometimes our internal tools have legacy names for the technology that enforces some of our policies,” they said. “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.”
Live Action does seem to fit right into Pinterest’s anti-misinformation target. They regularly share misleading videos, including the infamously heavily edited ones from fellow anti-abortion group Project Veritas.
Oddly, Project Veritas‘ Pinterest account appears to remain active. But a Pinterest spokesperson told Jezebel that Live Action was suspended because they were found to be “violating our misinformation policy related to conspiracies and health, and not for any other reason.”
Of course, the fact that they very clearly violated the site’s terms of service–and that they do not have a fundamental human or civil right to a Pinterest account–won’t stop them from crying political persecution.
Conservatives being asked to take down anything that blatantly violates a platform’s terms of service. pic.twitter.com/bEPI3UtRSu
— Zach Heltzel (@zachheltzel) June 10, 2019
(image: SETH HERALD/AFP/Getty Images)
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