Pro-life activist group Live Action has been in hot water with Facebook since last month. They’ve been accused of spreading false news after a fact-check group claimed a video of Lila Rose saying “abortions is never medically necessary” was false. This drew the attention of Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, both of whom have been going after Facebook for anti-conservative bias in their censorship patterns for some time.
As part of Facebook’s International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), a group called Health Feedback used the fact-checking of two physicians with ties to pro-abortion groups. This led to the group’s page and content being censored with reduced exposure and warnings placed on their content as fake news.
Cruz and Hawley sent a letter to Facebook calling for an investigation and noting they’ve already uncovered multiple cases of unabashed bias against conservative content on pages. Facebook replied in an unexpectedly compliant manner.
“We have been in touch with the IFCN which has opened an investigation to determine whether the fact checkers who rated this content did so by following procedures designed to ensure impartiality,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “While the IFCN investigates, we are removing the relevant fact checks and have communicated this to the members of the US Senate who brought this specific concern to our attention.”
Facebook removes fact check from anti-abortion video after criticism
The fact check was published by the group Health Feedback, part of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), which is partnered with Facebook to crack down on misinformation on the platform. Health Feedback’s reviews rated Rose’s claim as inaccurate, saying, “Certain medical conditions such as placenta previa and HELLP syndrome can make abortion a necessary medical procedure in order to prevent the mother’s death.”
Live Action said that after the fact check was posted late last month, the group was notified by Facebook that its page’s content would be subject to “reduced distribution and other restrictions because of repeated sharing of false news.”
Censorship by Big Tech is an ongoing issue that requires both lawmakers and conservative users to stand out ground. They are protected as unbiased platforms by Section 230. They need to play fair.
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