A firestorm was ignited late on Sunday on Twitter after scores of people began reporting that they were unable to follow the pro-life “Unplanned” movie which hit theaters over the weekend.
The continued problems with the movie’s Twitter account come after it was mysteriously banned on Saturday and was only reinstated later in the day after widespread outrage. Twitter did not provide details on why the account was suspended.
Late on Sunday, thousands of people noted that every time they tried to follow the movie’s account that their Twitter accounts automatically unfollowed the account moments later. The Daily Wire experienced the same problem when it tried to follow the account and did not experience the same problem when following multiple other accounts at the same time.
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Actress Patricia Heaton tweeted: “Hey @jack – why aren’t you letting me follow @UnplannedMovie ? I’ve tried eight times to support my friend @AbbyJohnson and @Twitter won’t let me. Others are having the same issue. Please correct this. Thank you.”
Lila Rose, the founder and President of Live Action, noted that the platform had taken tens of thousands of followers away from the “Unplanned” account.
NewsBusters VP Dan Gainor tweeted: “What @Twitter is doing now is deliberately aimed at hurting @UnplannedMovie. I hope lawyers go after them. Eh @pnjaban? I’d love to see @jack cope with a few million documents worth of discovery.”
Attorney Harmeet K. Dhillon tweeted: “Twitter is censoring @unplannedmovie and also interfering with the rights on this platform of over 100,000 other Twitter account holders to learn about the film. Who will hold Twitter accountable?”
Fox News’ Shannon Bream tweeted: “Kept reading the tweets about people following @UnplannedMovie – then immediately checking and seeing they are no longer following. Tried for myself, same experience multiple times. What’s the explanation? @jack”
Salena Zito tweeted: “Every single time I follow @UnplannedMovie within seconds drops my follow — nine times in a row ‘sup @Twitter?”
The Federalist’s Sean Davis tweeted: “Exact same thing just happened to me three times in a row. When I follow @UnplannedMovie, Twitter automatically unfollows the account as soon as I refresh the page to see if I’m still following the pro-life film’s Twitter account.”
“Ten times in a row now. And this is after Twitter tried banning @UnplannedMovie during its opening weekend,” Davis added.
Guy Benson tweeted: “Add me to the list. I’ve now defaulted back to not following @UnplannedMovie several times, despite my efforts to follow the account. @TwitterSupport”
Jason Howerton noted that “Unplanned” was not trending despite tens of thousands of recent tweets.
“Okay… separate issue, and I’m sorry but… why wouldn’t @UnplannedMovie be listed in trending with 20k+ tweets in the last hour?” Howerton tweeted. “I’m asking sincerely, other topics that are ‘trending’ have much less.”
Ashley Bratcher, who starred in the movie, noted that she couldn’t even follow her own movie.
Dana Loesch noted that she too had the problem, tweeting: “About five minutes ago I was following @UnplannedMovie and then I just checked after seeing so many say they had trouble even following the account and somehow, I wasn’t following them anymore.”
“And I followed them, clicked on home, clicked back, and I wasn’t following them again. The service won’t let me stay as a follow. How does that work?” Loesch added. “This is what happens when I hit follow and then refresh the page.”
Steve Deace noted that he had to follow the account multiple times.