FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 16, 2020
Contact: Prudence Robertson, [email protected], 202-223-8073
Facebook Censored SBA List Ads Days Before the Election Based on Faulty Fact Check
Washington, D.C. – Today the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing to address alleged censorship and election interference by Big Tech companies during the 2020 election. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Mark Zuckerburg, CEO of Facebook will both testify.
Ahead of Election Day, Facebook banned Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) ad campaigns running in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin educating voters in those states about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ support for late-term abortion. The rationale for the censorship was based on a factually incorrect third-party “fact check” from The Dispatch, which was later retracted.
“Our ad accurately exposed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ shameful support for abortion on demand through birth. Facebook used an inaccurate ‘fact check’ from The Dispatch as an excuse to censor us. The Dispatch article was later retracted in full, but the damage was done as we lost momentum to connect with voters in key battleground states,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “We are thankful to Chairman Graham and the Judiciary Committee for holding Big Tech answerable for their latest attempts to silence pro-life speech. This blatant pattern of censorship must end.”
Timeline of SBA List Censorship in 2020 Election:
- October 13, 2020: The Dispatch publishes a “fact check” claiming that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do not support abortion up until the moment of birth.
- October 15, 2020: Two weeks ahead of the election, Facebook takes down SBA List’s WSO PAC ad exposing Biden-Harris abortion extremism, flagging the ad “partly false.”
- October 16, 2020: After SBA List sounds the alarm on Facebook and The Dispatch, calling for reinstatement of the ads, The Dispatch editor Steve Hayes withdrew the fact check and Facebook reinstated the ads.
For a full timeline of Big Tech censorship faced by pro-life groups since 2015, visit: https://sbaprolife.org/censorship.
SBA List is a network of 900,000 pro-life Americans nationwide, dedicated to ending abortion by electing national leaders and advocating for laws that save lives, with a special calling to promote pro-life women leaders.
###
