Pinterest suspends anti-abortion group over ‘misinformation’

An anti-abortion group said Tuesday it was permanently banned from Pinterest for spreading “harmful misinformation.” 

Live Action, one of the largest anti-abortion groups with a strong social media following, tweeted Tuesday it had been suspended and added to a list of “blocked pornography sites,” according to BuzzFeed. 

“BREAKING: @Pinterest has permanently BANNED Live Action from the platform and marked all links to our website as ‘porn,'” Live Action tweeted.

BREAKING: @Pinterest has permanently BANNED Live Action from the platform and marked all links to our website as “porn.” https://t.co/YjoJcKQExO

— Live Action (@LiveAction) June 11, 2019

Live Action shared a screenshot of an email from Pinterest stating the account was permanently suspended for content that goes against the social media platform’s policies.

{mosads}”We don’t allow harmful misinformation on Pinterest. That includes medical misinformation and conspiracies that turn individuals and facilities into targets for harassment or violence,” according to the email shared by Live Action. 

Pinterest did not immediately respond to comment from The Hill. 

Project Veritas, a right-wing group that makes undercover videos, published a video stating Live Action had been added to a “porn block list,” which BuzzFeed reports prompted Live Action to notify its followers.  

Users cannot create a Pinterest “pin” from a site on the block list.

According to BuzzFeed, Pinterest said the group was suspended for “misinformation related to conspiracies and anti-vaccination advice, and not porn.”

“Sometimes our internal tools have legacy names for the technology that enforces some of our policies,” a Pinterest spokesperson told BuzzFeed. “This technology was named years ago to combat porn, and has since expanded to a variety of content despite retaining its original internal name. We are updating our internal labeling to make this clear.”

The move comes months after Pinterest acted to block vaccine-related searches on its website in an effort to crack down on the spread of misinformation related to the anti-vaccine movement.