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Twitter Locks Prominent Pro-Life Site's Account Over Years-Old Factual Article, Relents After Protests

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Twitter blinked Friday and restored the account of the pro-life LifeSite News after locking the account Thursday on the grounds that an article published four years ago violated Twitter’s rules.

LifeSite announced Friday afternoon that less than 24 hours after it was punished by Twitter, its Twitter account was back in business. The site noted that more than 7,500 people had signed an online petition to have its Twitter account unlocked.

LifeSite said Twitter told the site that it “made an error” in locking the account.

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The offending article was a 2014 post, still available on LifeSite’s website, by Dr. Gerald Nadal. The post suggested that the rise in sexually transmitted diseases by gay men was due to risk-taking behavior on the part of the men.

The article, which quoted various studies and research, pushed back against mainstream media claims that the rise was related to homophobia and a lack of sufficient health care access.

Are you glad LifeSite News was restored on Twitter?

Twitter, however, came down on LifeSite for a tweet linking to the article that used the article’s headline: “Why HIV, syphilis, and gonorrhea are rising among homosexuals.”

Twitter decided that after four years, the post violated “our rules against hateful conduct,” and chided LifeSite by saying it may not “promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or serious disease.”

LifeSite was told its account would be unlocked if it deleted the post referring to the article, but instead, the site dug in its heels and created an online petition demanding that Twitter unlock its account.

Steve Jalsevac, co-founder and president of LifeSite News, said the action puts the social media site’s bias and censorship on full display.

“This total intolerance for even reporting government health dept statistics that reveal the health dangers of homosexual activity betrays what Peter Thiel, himself a homosexual, previously called a totalitarian mindset in Silicon Valley,” he said. “Twitter is now trying to force news agencies to report only what is acceptable to their personal, biased views and shutting down balanced, factual reporting on the homosexual issue.”

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“This is getting dangerous for our democracy since a free press is one of the basic and necessary foundations for a genuinely democratic society,” Jalsevac continued. “This is getting scary. It is in everyone’s interest to fight this type of action and even demand government intervention to protect our rights.”

In its reporting on the ban, The Daily Wire contrasted the treatment of the pro-life site with that of Nation of Islam founder Rev. Louis Farrakhan, who recently compared Jews to termites on Twitter and has not been punished.

Censorship by social media giants has become a major issue. A June Pew Research poll found that  64 percent of Republicans believe that media giants support liberal views over those of conservatives.

The poll also found that of individuals who were either Republicans or leaning Republican, 85 percent believed that social media giants censor the news.

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Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Jack can be reached at jackwritings1@gmail.com.
Location
New York City
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Politics, Foreign Policy, Military & Defense Issues




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