When free speech is infringed upon, that’s a problem. When free speech reporting such infringements is also violated, that’s an even bigger problem — and unfortunately, it’s one that Students for Life of America (SFLA) is currently facing. Don’t let the irony of this situation escape you; we are being censored for discussing censorship. Here’s what’s happened:  

After a night of extreme intolerance and violence at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) during a SFLA President Kristan Hawkins speaking tour stop, we made a video summing up the experience. It featured radical transgender and Antifa protestors screaming curses and insults (like “F*ck Pro-Life” and “Fascists Go Home”), refusing to engage or allow others to converse with Hawkins, assaulting pro-life students, and generally disrupting the peaceful event. Watch it on YouTube below:  

You can also watch the video on SFLA’s Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter — but you won’t have any luck on the popular social media platform TikTok. Why? SFLA does have a presence on the app — but our voice — as in this instance — is often silenced.  

Despite multiple attempts to post this video on Tik Tok, it has been removed multiple times.  

This isn’t the first time TikTok has directly targeted pro-life content through suppression. For years, our videos have been removed for arbitrary reasons. Last year, SFLA was banned without warning from TikTok for a three-day period (click HERE to see the viral clip that got us kicked off). 

Unfortunately, this is a pattern we’ve seen from this app, and other pro-life organizations are also experiencing such censorship. According to Media Research Center’s (MRC) CensorTrack database, TikTok has canceled and silenced at least 11 pro-life organizations since 2019 with SFLA being one of them.  

MRC researcher Gabriela Pariseau said:  

“None of the 11 ‘permanently banned’ organizations in this report received an explanation why. Though the platform sometimes claims that censored users violate so-called ‘hate speech’ or ‘integrity and authenticity’ policies, TikTok often gives no explanation for its seemingly arbitrary banning of user accounts.”  

Such blatant censorship is very concerning for the state of our country and should alarm American citizens regardless of their viewpoint. The abortion lobby is clearly suppressing information to protect their narrative, and this deception is eerily reminiscent of George Orwell’s signature work ‘1984.’ In the book, the Party — by way of the Ministry of Truth — exercises thought control by erasing parts of history that would make people doubt them. 

Isn’t that exactly what we’re seeing here?  

This video showing the violence and hatred at VCU is obviously inconvenient for the abortion lobby. It shows their overall lack of respect for humanity and their acceptance of physical aggression — neither of which make them look too good. This mirror reflection showed inner ugliness on the part of the abortion lobby, and the abortion supporters at TikTok weren’t having it, apparently. Instead of allowing this video to hurt their image, it has been suppressed.  

Pro-life speech is free speech, however, and the SFLA team will continue to work to spread our message, regardless of those who seek to silence us. Stay tuned to hear if Tik Tok backs down on their suppression of this video — we won’t be backing down in our promotion of it.  

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