Twitter takes massive action against pro-life 'Unplanned' movie: 'This is bias in action'

Twitter suspended the account for the pro-life "Unplanned" movie Saturday, an untimely move given this weekend marked the movie's opening weekend in theaters nationwide.

The move comes amid ongoing discussion over the role technology giants, like Facebook, Twitter, and Google, play in policing "hate speech" online. Conservatives argue social media companies disproportionally target their content, often suppressing it from news feeds or removing it altogether.

What happened?

Around lunchtime Saturday, conservatives on Twitter noticed the account for "Unplanned" had been suspended without notice.

Lila Rose, the prominent pro-life activist who founded Live Action, characterized the move as "bias in action."

@RubinReport @joerogan @Timcast this is bias in action.
— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) March 30, 2019

After prominent users began pointing out the suspension, and criticizing Twitter for taking inexplicable action against the movie, the account was restored. It's not clear how long the account was suspended.

Firebrand conservative Dana Loesch said:

If Twitter doesn't discriminate against ideology, as they attested to during their hearing, then why seemingly do only conservative accounts continue to be suspended for no TOS violations? What did @UnplannedMovie do to warrant such an action? Where is the consistency?

I say this because I have seen so many other accounts of different ideological persuasion that DO violate TOS (sending death threats, doxxing, etc) that are allowed to remain up and active even after reporting.

Jack may be genuine in wanting Twitter to operate fairly, but the company's culture, as evidenced by the suspensions I've referenced, challenge that, or at least challenge how he wants to run the company.

And literally as I typed the last Tweet @UnplannedMovie was restored, thankfully, as it's their opening weekend. I hope @TwitterSupport looks into how stuff like this keeps happening. It can't all be algorithms, can it?

What did Twitter say?

A Twitter representative told TheBlaze the account for "Unplanned" was mistakenly suspended over an unrelated account's violation of Twitter's rules. When an account is suspended, Twitter's algorithms search for linked accounts to mitigate "ban evasion." Somehow, the account for "Unplanned" fell trap to this safety net.

Upon secondary evaluation, Twitter determined the account for "Unplanned" had not violated Twitter's rules, and reinstated the account.

Anything else?

Sources told TheBlaze that "Unplanned" has received a coveted A+ CinemaScore rating, the first movie of 2019 to earn the rating, a distinction fewer than 50 movies have earned in the 21st century.

This story has been updated.