Politics

Google, PayPal, Venmo Crack Down Anti-‘Groomer’ Account

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Laurel Duggan Social Issues and Culture Reporter
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Digital accounts associated with the Gays Against Groomers Twitter account were shut down this week in what appears to be a coordinated crackdown from Big Tech, according to emails and screenshots shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Google, Paypal and Venmo shut down accounts affiliated with Gays Against Groomers, a Twitter account that is critical of gender ideology, particularly in regard to children. Venmo shut down the account early Tuesday morning, and Paypal blocked the account from its services minutes later, according to an email shared by the account’s founder Jamie Michell; Google shut down her account, including her email address, the following morning, according to a screenshot and an email.

Her Google account was reinstated Wednesday afternoon, according to Michell, who said the company may have been responding to blowback from the right over what looked like a coordinated banning. A Google spokesperson denied that the company coordinated with other companies in a statement to the DCNF and claimed the account had been temporarily suspended because of an automatic system that targets the bulk creation of accounts.

“There is a coordinated attack against our nonprofit organization by Big Tech for the high crime of stepping out of line from the Alphabet Cult,” Michell told the DCNF. “We are being labeled as a hate group for simply being against the sexualization and medicalization of children. This does not deter or intimidate us.” (RELATED: Left-Wing Activists Urge Big Tech To Censor Anti-Pedophile ‘Smear’)

Critics have accused the Gays Against Groomers account of engaging in hateful and anti-transgender conduct for sharing publicly available photos and videos of transgender people, LGBT activists or drag shows, since the videos stir up anger online, but Michell views her account as a way of exposing abusers and predators. Left-wing activist group Media Matters has been pressuring tech companies to crack down on Michell’s account, along with Libs of TikTok and others that repost videos from LGBT activists.

The term “groomer” describes an adult who befriends a child without proper boundaries in order to prime them for for sexual abuse, and it has been used by some activists to criticize child drag events and lessons on sexuality and gender identity targeting young children. Twitter began censoring the term at the behest of Media Matters, which argued the phrase was being used to smear LGBT people as sexual predators.

“We take great offense to being labeled as hateful and bigoted in our attempts to not only protect children from harm, but also protect our community and ourselves from being seen as grotesque predators,” Michell told the DCNF.

Paypal, which owns Venmo, did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment, and Google responded but did not offer a comment prior to the publication of this article.

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