Meta victory: Social media giant restores pro-life accounts just days after contact with ADF attorneys
Wrongly booted from Facebook, Instagram, LifeNews, Abby Covington back online after Meta reverses deeply flawed decision
MENLO PARK, Calif. – Last week, Meta restored wrongfully suspended Facebook and Instagram accounts for pro-life news site LifeNews.com, LifeNews CEO and editor Steven Ertelt, and potential adoptive mom Abby Covington. The move came days after Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter to Meta calling on the social media giant to reverse its deeply flawed decisions to ban the accounts for weaponizing its standards against “human exploitation” and “child sexual exploitation.”
Meta’s restoration of the specific accounts also comes in the immediate wake of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of major changes at the company—including a badly needed series of improvements and clarifications to its content moderation policies. In both his video announcement on Meta, and his appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience later in the week, Zuckerberg critiqued his company’s overly broad content moderation standards that have opened the door for vast censorship of political and religious views like those expressed by Ertelt and Covington. Those policies are in large part responsible for Meta’s low 15% of a possible 100% tally on ADF’s 2024 Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index, which measures corporate respect for free speech and religious liberty.
“Restoring pro-life speech to one of the world’s largest platforms is a major step in the right direction,” said ADF Senior Counsel Phil Sechler, director of the ADF Center for Free Speech. “We’re grateful to see Steven Ertelt, Abby Covington, and LifeNews back on Meta platforms, where they will continue to use their voice to spread family-friendly and life-affirming messages. There’s no doubt that Mark Zuckerberg and Meta have plenty of work ahead to build back trust with the public, but correcting these past mistakes will go a long way to do just that.”
“Facebook should not have suspended our accounts for posting a pro-life medical video,” said Ertelt. “And it should not have taken eight months and a letter from attorneys for Facebook and Instagram to finally restore access to our accounts. But this is an example of the kind of censorship and discrimination pro-life conservatives have come to expect from Facebook over the years. With its recent changes, we hope Facebook will truly allow free speech on its platforms.”
LifeNews reaches more than 750,000 individuals weekly through its website, e-mails, radio programs, and social media accounts, and has an Instagram account with over 20,000 followers. Ertelt—who has nearly 5,000 friends on his personal account—used his Facebook to repost content from LifeNews. Covington, who used Facebook as a primary source for her small business to reach customers, created a Facebook and Instagram page chronicling her family’s journey toward adoption. Both Ertelt and Covington tried to log in to their Facebook accounts shortly after sharing pro-life posts and were locked out with no warning. After they tried to appeal multiple times, Meta permanently banned their Facebook and Instagram accounts. Because Ertelt operated LifeNews’s Instagram account, Meta permanently banned that account as well.
In May, Ertelt shared a LifeNews.com post that included a video of a cesarean section with a caption that read, “An unborn baby can’t be just a clump of cells when he or she is grabbing the doctor’s hand.” The post garnered significant traction, but when Ertelt tried to log in to his account later that day, he learned his account was suspended for “child sexual exploitation.” LifeNews also used Ertelt’s account to create its Instagram page, and as a result, that page was unavailable until Facebook restored Ertelt’s account.
Similarly, Covington created a page called “Austin & Abby Adopt—Covington Family Adoption Journey,” which was dedicated to her and her husband’s religious commitment and conviction that all human life is precious and worth protecting. In November, Covington used her page to introduce her family and reach out to pregnant mothers making an adoption plan. Shortly after her post, online trolls harassed her for her religious beliefs and commitment to pro-life ideals. She deleted the post, but Facebook later deleted her entire account, citing a violation of its “human exploitation” standards. Without her Facebook account, Covington was unable to access her adoption page as well as her small business page.
- Pronunciation guide: Sechler (SECK’-lur)
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
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ABOUT Philip A. Sechler
Philip A. Sechler serves as senior counsel and director of the Center for Free Speech at Alliance Defending Freedom, where he lead's the team's efforts to defend free speech and combat global censorship and coercion. Before joining ADF, Sechler had a long career in private practice, with substantial first-chair trial experience in courts around the country on a variety of complex litigation matters. He was also a Distinguished Visitor from Practice at Penn State Law School, where he spent four years teaching. He also taught at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University and at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he continues to teach a course on Professional Responsibility. Sechler received his bachelor’s degree with high distinction from Pennsylvania State University, and he earned his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center, where he graduated summa cum laude and was Editor-in-Chief of The Georgetown Law Journal. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable Francis D. Murnaghan, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. Sechler is admitted to practice before the District of Columbia and Virginia bars, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous federal appellate and trial courts.