A Catholic pro-life leader in Florida is suing Google for de-platforming her after the tech giant suspended her email account for supposedly violating its Acceptable Use Policy with a pro-life email.
According to the filed complaint, Trudy Perez-Poveda, 76, sent an email on September 23, 2023 to members of Family for Life, her pro-life group which peacefully prays, counsels, and holds Mass and Eucharistic processions outside abortion facilities in Jacksonville, Florida. She had used the account for over 11 years.
Perez-Poveda and Family For Life are currently campaigning in opposition to Amendment 4, a proposed pro-abortion state constitutional amendment on the ballot in November.
Her email contained information about an event outside an abortion clinic that included Mass, exposition of the Eucharist and a procession, recitation of the rosary, and other prayers for the unborn. She also sent photos of similar events that had happened in the past.
Roughly one hour later, Google alerted Perez-Poveda that her account had been suspended, but failed to provide any other information or reason for the suspension. A Google support representative initially told Perez-Poveda that he submitted a request to investigate and restore her account, but five days later informed her that the account was permanently disabled for breaching the company’s Acceptable Use Policy.
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Perez-Poveda then requested all the data contained in the account, which included contacts, emails, photos, notes, and documents. Though Google acknowledged that the data is legally hers, the company claimed that there was no way to access or restore the data.
Google additionally could not point to anything that had violated its user policy, saying that it was unable to share the exact policy that was violated due to security reasons.
“People ask me what it felt like when Google abruptly shut me down,” Perez-Poveda stated in a news release. “My reply is, ‘It felt like coming home to a house, which took me twelve years to furnish with family mementos and treasures, and find it completely empty without even a note explaining why.’”
Perez-Poveda sued Google on July 25, 2024. She is being represented by the Thomas More Society, a nonprofit pro-religious freedom law firm.
In a news release, the firm said Perez-Poveda’s lawsuit is likely the first of its kind in seeking to enforce part of Florida’s controversial anti-censorship law since the U.S. Supreme Court addressed it in a July 1 ruling.
Matt Heffron, senior counsel at the Thomas More Society, stated in the news release that “there is an ominous growth of censorship in this country.”
“Large social-media companies act as a ‘digital public square,’ and play a central role in the debate of ideas,” he said. “Our case, Trudy v. Google, is part of the urgent and overdue pushback against this rising tide of censorship. Nobody should be treated the way Google treated Trudy Perez.”
LifeNews Note: Hannah Hiester writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.
