Joey Garrison and Dave Boucher

The Tennessean

NASHVILLE — Republican U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn's online video announcing her campaign for U.S. Senate has been blocked in any Twitter advertisements after the social media company objected to a line that refers to the lawmaker stopping the "sale of baby body parts."

Blackburn's campaign announced Twitter's decision on Monday after a representative of Twitter informed her campaign that the line "had been deemed an inflammatory statement that is likely to evoke a strong negative reaction." The language violates Twitter's policy for advertisements, the company said.

"If this is omitted from the video it will be permitted to serve," a Twitter representative said in an email to a political ad agency working for the campaign.

Although Twitter blocked the video as an online ad, Blackburn is allowed to promote it on her campaign Twitter account.

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Twitter spokesman Nicholas Pacilio confirmed tweets promoted from Blackburn's campaign account violated the terms of the social media platform.

"Twitter provides a platform for its users to share and receive a wide range of ideas and content, and we greatly value and defend our users' ability to express themselves," Pacilio said in a statement.



"Advertisers on Twitter have access to a wide range of targeting options to promote their Tweets to a wider audience. Because of this, advertisers on Twitter have the power to reach an audience beyond the users who choose to follow their account."

Blackburn released the three-minute video — an unabashed play to President Trump's base in Tennessee — on Thursday to mark her entry into next year's U.S. Senate race to replace U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, who announced his retirement two weeks ago.

"I fought Planned Parenthood and we stopped the sale of baby body parts," Blackburn says in the video. "Thank God."

Blackburn, an eight-term congressman from Williamson County, is referencing her work as the leader of the "House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives." Supporters say the congressional entity helped prevent any illegal sale of fetal tissue, but Democrats blasted the panel's work, calling it a partisan attack aimed at limiting access to legal abortions.

“Not only do I believe that this panel is an inappropriate and wasteful misuse of federal resources, but I am gravely concerned that it also puts researchers, providers and patients across this country at risk,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said during an April 2016 hearing.

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A 1993 federal law prohibits the sale of fetal tissue for a profit. The panel debated whether that was occurring with several companies, according to The Tennessean's archives.

The select panel, part of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was created in 2015 to investigate abortion practices in the wake of undercover videos that suggested Planned Parenthood had profited from the sale of fetal tissue from abortions. The group has denied the allegation.

Activists who shot the undercover videos were indicted by a Texas grand jury, but those charges were eventually dropped.

Follow Joey Garrison and Dave Boucher on Twitter: @joeygarrison and @Dave_Boucher1