Twitter has tried again to silence voices of the pro-life movement.
The page for the film Unplanned was suspended on Twitter on March 30 by mistake, if Twitter is to be believed. The account, which at the time had 40,000 followers, was suspended without notice. It was only after public outcry that the account was restored, with the explanation that it was accidentally banned because it was mistakenly linked to another account.
According to Breitbart, Twitter claimed that “When an account violates the Twitter Rules, the system looks for linked accounts to mitigate things like ban evasion. In this case, on a second review, it was clear the account should not be affected by the other account’s suspension.”
After the account was restored, Twitter informed the administrators of the Unplanned page that it would take some time for the followers to be restored. However, those that tried to follow the page were immediately removed from the following list. Daily Caller video columnist Stephanie Hamill messaged the Unplanned account saying that while she and the account followed each other initially, “we are both no longer following each other.” However, she had never unfollowed the account.
When the account was restored from its suspension, it gained 99,000 followers. It was also verified. But followers noticed that the blue check mark was gone, as well as the followers.
On April 1, the account tweeted out that it was back to normal, and followers were not getting booted off. As of April 1, the account has 200,000 followers. It still has not been re-verified.
Pro-life accounts and figures have struggled on Twitter. Senator Marsha Blackburn’s pro-life ad was blocked on Twitter for being “inflammatory” during the 2018 midterm elections. Lila Rose’s Live Action was banned from advertising on Twitter because Twitter wanted content on the Live Action website to be changed.