The anti-vaccine organization led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims to have been “deplatformed” on Facebook and Instagram. Children’s Health Defense is a non-profit noted for its vaccination skepticism, despite the fact that vaccines available in the United States are safe and effective. Kennedy, the son of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, frequently utilizes his position to propagate vaccination disinformation and anti-vaccine propaganda.
CHD claimed in a news release that it was removed from social networking networks without warning, and it shared images of the warnings it got. According to the Facebook message, the page was deactivated because it violated the company’s community rules on disinformation. “We welcome free expression, but we don’t tolerate incorrect information on COVID-19 that might contribute to bodily injury,” the notification’s screenshot states.
According to the Instagram message, the page was suspended for breaking community rules. Meta, formerly known as Facebook, owns both platforms.
CHD releases articles on its website criticizing COVID-19 vaccination requirements and casting doubt on the CDC and the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, which have been shown safe and efficacious, with 223,684,995 persons completely immunized in the United States.
Kennedy condemned Facebook’s takedown of the CHD page in a statement. “The First Amendment is not required to safeguard popular or government-approved speech. They deliberately included the First Amendment to defend the free expression of dissenting viewpoints. They realized that a regime that can suppress its critics has permission to commit any atrocity “He said.
Meta has stated that “free expression is essential to a flourishing society.” In a blog post published in 2018, the firm stated that it moderates “material shared by billions of people” and does it “in a way that affords free speech the greatest possible range.”
“However, there are crucial exceptions: for example, we do not allow information that might physically or financially damage individuals, that intimidates people through abusive language, or that attempts to profit by misleading people through Facebook,” Meta wrote in a blog post.
Facebook has stepped up its efforts to combat the propagation of disinformation on its site, which increased during the 2016 presidential election and the COVID-19 outbreak. Meta has stated that it would crack down on hate speech, harassment, threats of violence, and incorrect information.
Since 2016, the firm has doubled its safety and security teams to more than 40,000 employees, and it plans to decrease the circulation of information that does not break its rules but has been labeled fake by independent fact-checkers in order to prevent it from going viral.
After the spread of disinformation grew prevalent, several high-profile accounts, including President Donald Trump’s, were banned from Facebook and other social media sites like Twitter.
CHD filed a 150-page case against Meta, then known as Facebook, in 2020. CHD claimed that Facebook’s fact-checking was biased. A judge found in favor of the tech titan, but CHD appealed.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has chastised Kennedy for a 2022 statement at an anti-vax event in which he equated COVID-19 containment measures to Nazi-era limitations during the Holocaust. According to the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum, Kennedy’s exploitation of “the tragedy of those who suffered, were humiliated, tortured, and murdered by the totalitarian system of Nazi Germany” was a “sad indication of moral and intellectual deterioration.”
CBS News has requested comment from CHD and Meta and is expecting a response.