Blackburn turns Twitter rebuff into fundraising effort

U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn has been barred from advertising her campaign for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination on Twitter because a line about her efforts to investigate Planned Parenthood was deemed “inflammatory,” reports Politico. Blackburn is using the Twitter rebuff as a theme in her fundraising efforts.

Blackburn, who is running to replace retiring Sen. Bob Corker, launched her campaign last week with a video proclaiming herself “a hard core, card-carrying Tennessee conservative.” In her announcement video, she boasts: “I fought Planned Parenthood and we stopped the sale of baby body parts. Thank God.”

Twitter decided the line violated its ad policies, according to an email obtained by POLITICO. The video is still on Twitter, but the campaign is barred from paying to promote it.

“The account is not suspended, nor are the organic Tweets the account has sent containing the same video from the promoted Tweets,” a Twitter spokesperson wrote in an email.

…“It appears that the line in this video specific to ‘stopped the sale of baby body parts’ has been deemed an inflammatory statement that is likely to evoke a strong negative reaction,” a Twitter employee wrote to two employees of Targeted Victory, a digital GOP consulting firm working for Blackburn’s campaign. “If this is omitted from the video it will be permitted to serve.”

On Monday, Blackburn took aim at the social media network in a fundraising email.

“This is urgent. I’m being censored for telling the truth,” Blackburn wrote. “Twitter has shut down my announcement video advertising. Silicon Valley elites are trying to impose their values on us. When I talked about our legislative accomplishments to stop the sale of baby body parts, they responded by calling our ad ‘inflammatory’ and ‘negative.’”