“This baby is big enough to walk around with me or walk me to the bus stop” — Abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who is serving three consecutive life sentences for murder
By Dave Andrusko
As we’ve detailed in many posts, co-producers Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer have moved heaven and earth to get the truth out about notorious West Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell. The many, many obstacles would have stopped lesser souls in their tracks but not this husband-and-wife team.
The latest barrier is Facebook, the social media behemoth that McAleer tells the Federalist’s Rich Cromwell is stifling ads for their new film. “The Silicon establishment do not want this story told,” McAleer said. “Kickstarter refused to let us crowdfund to fund the film and NPR have just rejected us from advertising the movie on the taxpayer funded station. Now Facebook is trying to censor the movie by preventing its creators from advertising on Facebook. They really, really don’t want this story told.”
So why is Facebook playing games with their ads promoting the film?
“They simply state it’s not been approved and to check their standards, but it does not give you a specific reason why this post could be not be promoted at all to a wider audience,” he said. “It’s clear it is the pro-life audience that they don’t want to encourage or provide content to. They really hate anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the liberal world view.”
Cromwell says that “Facebook found the posts to be in violation of its standards limiting political expression and wouldn’t approve the promotions.” That’s what you can do when you are a colossal social media venue.
“Gosnell: the trial of America’s biggest serial killer” does have a Facebook page, but without paid advertising (which “boosts” the post), only a tiny proportion of people will see it. As McAlee’s told The Federalist, “A limited number of people can see it within their feed but you cannot promote it to a wider audience. Many technical blogs who study Facebook reach report this means as little as 2 percent of your audience sees the post if it is not boosted.”
Here’s a long, direct quote from McAleer via Cromwell:
Facebook is censoring this story and destroying our attempts to get the news about this film out to the public. Facebook is essentially silencing these children and women whom Gosnell murdered. This is content journalists should be covering but Facebook is putting their thumb on the scale because they do not like the content. Audiences want to see this content and we’re willing to pay for the advertising but again they are demonstrating their bias against a true crime story. As independent filmmakers, we have a limited budget and Facebook was a mainstay of our outreach efforts.
We can’t control or even influence Facebook. What we can do is attend the movie and make sure everyone we know does as well.
Please go to www.gosnellmovie.com/theaters to find out where the movie will be showing AND call your local AMC, Cinemark, or Regal theaters and ask them to show Gosnell when it opens on October 12th.