Pro-Life Group Sends Cease-and-Desist Letters to YouTube, Pinterest Alleging Censorship
One of the nation’s leading pro-life organizations is fighting YouTube and Pinterest over alleged discrimination against the group’s anti-abortion posts on both platforms.
The group, Live Action, announced Friday that its attorneys had sent cease and-desist letters to YouTube and Pinterest dated August 21, demanding the platforms address its allegations or contact its lawyers by August 30.
Live Action has accused YouTube of failing to publish its video ads, breach of contract, and causing it to suffer financial losses. Pinterest banned Live Action from its platform in June, claiming its “pro-life educational and political content” qualified as “pornographic.” Live Action’s lawyers wrote in their letter that the decision smacked of “kneejerk reactions and poorly thought-out pretexts for speech suppression.”
YouTube has said it is looking into the concerns raised by Live Action. Pinterest has not replied to the group’s letter.
“Litigation is likely to ensue in this matter,” the letters read.
“It is truly sad and disheartening that in a society built on the principles of freedom of speech and assembly companies like YouTube and Pinterest, who clearly benefit from these first principles of American culture, are engaging in not-so-subtle tactics to suppress speech with which they disagree,” Lila Rose, Live Action’s founder and president said in a statement. “We have played by the rules outlined by these enterprises, paid our bills and lived up to the terms of service agreements, yet they still choose to discriminate against us because we are a pro-life advocacy organization.”
“YouTube and Pinterest are clearly in violation of the law and must remedy this situation,” said Live Action’s attorney, Harmeet Dhillon of the Dhillon Law Group. “The evidence in both of these cases is substantial, ranging from suppression of speech and breach of contract to censorship and banning of Live Action based on false claims.”
Last week, Live Action made a similar accusation against Facebook, saying the mammoth social-media platform’s fact-checking mechanism labeled as “false” and “inaccurate” the group’s claim that “abortion is never medically necessary.”
“Continued efforts to censor Live Action will have tremendous implications, not only for the pro-life movement, but for free speech in America,” Rose said.
