A 76-year-old pro-life activist from Florida has filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the tech giant violated state law by abruptly terminating her account without warning or preserving her data.
of Daily Mail Reports Trudy Perez Poveda, a longtime Google account holder since 2012, filed a lawsuit against the company in Duval County Circuit Court, seeking to overturn the ban on her account. The lawsuit is believed to be the first in Florida following the Supreme Court’s decision to vacate an injunction blocking the state’s de-platforming law.
The controversy began in September when Pérez Poveda, a volunteer with the organization Family for Life, emailed members about planning a Mass outside an abortion clinic in Jacksonville. Within an hour, she received a notice from Google saying her account had been suspended, with no explanation.
Over the next 10 days, Pérez Poveda was in contact with Google, and initially there were indications that her service might be restored. But Google eventually told her that her account had been permanently disabled for violating its terms of service. When asked for details of the violation, Google gave a vague response, saying that for security reasons they couldn’t share details about the policies that had been violated.
Losing access to her account was a major shock to Pérez Poveda. In her lawsuit, she describes the experience as “coming home to a home that she had spent 12 years furnishing with family memorabilia and treasures,[ing] There wasn’t even a note explaining why, it was completely empty.”
Pérez Poveda is seeking legal advice from the Thomas More Society, a law firm known for its work on abortion-related issues. Matt Heffron, senior counsel at the Thomas More Society, expressed concern over what he sees as a growing trend of censorship in the U.S. “Censorship is growing at an ominous rate in this country,” he said. “Large social media companies function as the ‘digital public square,’ and play a central role in the debate of ideas.”
Heffron also stressed that while Google has not explicitly said its actions were related to abortion or religious issues, it is a reasonable inference given the circumstances, and that the company must explain its decision to suspend Pérez Poveda’s account.
The lawsuit details how Pérez Poveda used the Google account for a variety of activities, including volunteering with Family for Life, a group described as “a group of people who pray, counsel, and sometimes hold Catholic Masses and Eucharistic processions near abortion clinics.”
It’s worth noting that Pérez Poveda has been embroiled in controversy related to the anti-abortion movement in the past. In 2021, she was involved in an incident at A Woman’s Choice clinic where a 19-year-old patient shoved her to the ground after taking a photo of her. The teenager was subsequently charged with assault on a person over 65 years of age.
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Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering free speech and online censorship.
