After promising to protect free speech moving forward, Meta unbanned several pro-life accounts. Is this a good sign for the future?

From The Daily Wire. Meta has restored several pro-life Facebook accounts just days after attorneys sent a letter demanding the social media giant do so in the wake of Meta’s recent promise to support free speech.

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The Facebook and Instagram accounts for pro-life news site LifeNews.com, LifeNews founder Steven Ertelt, and pro-life mom Abby Covington were restored this week after being suspended for months, according to a press release provided exclusively to The Daily Wire.

The move came just a week after their legal team at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) sent a letter to Meta calling on the platform to reverse its decision to suspend the accounts. …

In May, Ertelt found his Facebook account had been permanently disabled after he posted a video showing a doctor performing a C-section. During the procedure, the unborn child can be seen grabbing the doctor’s finger.

“An unborn baby can’t be just a clump of cells when he or she is grabbing the doctor’s hand,” read the video’s caption.

Facebook permanently disabled Ertelt’s account and informed him the post failed to follow its Community Standards on “child sexual exploitation,” his attorneys said.

Because LifeNews used Ertelt’s Facebook account to create the LifeNews Instagram account, the group’s Instagram account is effectively permanently suspended as well. …

Covington, the Christian pro-life mother of three, had her Facebook account permanently suspended after she posted about her family’s adoption journey. In her post, she described her family’s Christian faith and encouraged expecting mothers to reach out if they were thinking about putting their baby up for adoption. …

Facebook then informed her that her account did not follow its Community Standards on “human exploitation,” her attorneys said. The platform disabled her Instagram account, as well as all of her Facebook accounts, including the one for her jewelry, skincare, and makeup business. …

The ADF attorneys accused Meta of violating its free speech standards, breaching its own terms of service, and failing to uphold its promises. They had requested the company respond to their request to reinstate the pro-life accounts by January 22.

“These situations provide a litmus test for whether Meta will live up to its public announcement or continue to censor and restrict the marketplace of ideas,” the legal team wrote.

Last week, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg released a video announcing sweeping changes to his company’s content moderation policies, promising “more speech and fewer mistakes.” …

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(Excerpt from The Daily Wire. Photo Credit: Solen Feyissa on Unsplash)