Black Pro-Life Group Accuses Twitter, Facebook, Instagram of ‘Jim Crow’ Blacklisting

The Radiance Foundation, a pro-life organization founded by a black American, has alleged it is facing censorship on most major social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The group’s response to the blacklisting has been to call on the Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe to “Stop Jim Crow’ing us.”

The Radiance Foundation, like many other groups with a conservative agenda, has had its pro-life images removed from Instagram, its advertisements blocked on Facebook, and its posts shadow-banned on Twitter, as part of a widespread Internet blacklisting campaign.

.@TwitterSupport is now censoring our images with bogus "sensitive material" warnings. Please stop Jim Crow'ing us @Twitter. Tech titans of "tolerance", who claim to believe in "equality", spend a lot of time treating people unequally. pic.twitter.com/gIC9lI1t1M

— Radiance Foundation (@lifehaspurpose) January 9, 2019

“We were mentioned in many media outlets for ‘interfering’ in Ireland’s Abortion Referendum back in May 2018 accused of ‘paying for ads’ by the Transparency Referendum Initiative,” claimed the Radiance Foundation’s Chief Creative Officer, Ryan Bomberger, in an email to Breitbart Tech. “It was the same month that [Facebook] disallowed us from boosting any posts or placing any ads. They, soon after, required us to go through an authorization process providing our residential address (wouldn’t take our business address), personal driver’s license, SSN, and other deeply personal information to go through an approval process to exercise our right to free speech.”

“Prior to that, however, Facebook had repeatedly blocked our content. We would receive many messages from our followers on our page. Despite repeated contacts with Facebook about the issue, nothing ever changed,” Bomberger continued, adding that “Instagram threatened to suspend our page because we compared Planned Parenthood’s killing of black lives to the KKK in this meme.”

Bomberger, a black man who frequently criticizes Planned Parenthood’s abortion rate of black babies, also claimed Twitter has recently started to censor the organization by placing “sensitive material” warnings over its content — a claim Breitbart Tech confirmed.

All images posted by the Radiance Foundation on Twitter are automatically censored with a warning, which then requires users to click another button to see the content.

Bomberger also accused Twitter of refusing to run pro-life advertisements and shadow-banning the organization from search results.

Bomberger has faced similar problems in the world of academia. After giving a speech at the evangelical Christian Wheaton College, the student government alleged that Bomberger made students feel “unsafe” after he shared his life story of being a black American conceived by rape who was adopted instead of aborted.

The Radiance Foundation is not the first pro-life organization to have faced similar difficulties on social media.

In October, Facebook censored a pro-life organization’s advertisements for containing footage of ultrasounds and “photos of babies who survived premature births,” and just days later, Facebook also banned an advertisement from the same organization which promoted Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), before reversing their decision following complaints.

Facebook and Google also banned advertisements during Ireland’s 2018 referendum on abortion, and in the same year, Facebook blocked links to a crowdfunding website for a movie about Roe v. Wade.

Twitter has also previously blocked pro-life advertisements from Blackburn, and even temporarily banned a pro-life activist with Down Syndrome for posting pro-life material.

In February 2018, Google’s YouTube restricted a video about Planned Parenthood published by Dennis Prager’s PragerU.