16 Attorneys General Send Letter To YouTube Demanding They Remove Pro-Choice Propaganda From Pro-Life Vids
Sixteen Attorney Generals sent a letter on Monday to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, demanding that his company remove “misleading” pro-choice talking points being attached to pro-life videos or else face legal action and consequences.
In the letter, signed by Iowa, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming, the Attorney Generals accuse YouTube of adding its own misleading “information panel” to videos about abortion, saying that their notice “contains false information about a central issue in a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court” and that “it also misleads women seeking information about abortion drugs, potentially endangering their lives.” (There is a current case about “the FDA’s eliminating health warning and safety measures for women taking abortion drugs like Plan B)
Specifically, the AGs cite a notice added by YouTube to Alliance Defending Freedom’s video about a woman detailing the agony and pain she went through after taking abortion-inducing drugs without a doctor present, which, in their view, is “a notice that minimizes and downplays some of the serious risks of abortion drugs.”
The notice states: “An abortion is a procedure to end a pregnancy. It uses medicine or surgery to remove the embryo or fetus and placenta from the uterus. The procedure is done by a licensed healthcare professional.”
Writing that “The last sentence of the notice is both false and misleading. It suggests that chemical abortions are performed by trained professionals. They are not. Although surgical abortions are still typically “done by a licensed healthcare professional,” under current FDA protocols chemical abortions are “done by” pregnant women themselves,” they conclude:
By asserting that chemical abortions are performed by licensed healthcare professionals, YouTube lies to our constituents and the rest of the American public.
That lie is especially concerning because it inaccurately portrays a fact central to a current Supreme Court case. We expect YouTube will recognize the serious harm its notice poses and promptly remove or correct it.
If it does not, we will need to exercise our consumer-protection authority to protect pregnant women and other consumers from your falsehoods. We also note that, by editing and posting the false warning label itself, YouTube has no immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
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