Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has removed the accounts of Children’s Health Defense (CDH), an influential US anti-vaccine organization led by former President John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s son-in-law Robert Kennedy Jr., from the two platforms.
“We have removed the Instagram and Facebook accounts in question due to repeated violations of our Covid-19 policies”Explained Thursday, August 18, Aaron Simpson, a spokesman for Meta.
Criticizing the safety of vaccines against Covid-19, CDH has aligned itself with US health authorities, accusing Meta of not respecting its right to freedom of expression.
“Here Facebook is acting as a proxy for the central government’s crusade to silence any criticism of the government’s brutal policies.”The organization’s founder, Robert Kennedy Jr., a key figure in the American Antivax galaxy, said in a press release.
Robert Kennedy Jr. – and the former US president’s family more broadly – is a key figure in the mythology of the QAnon conspiracy movement. Some activists in the movement believe that John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr., who died in a plane crash in 1999, is still alive and that he will suddenly appear to assume the leadership of the United States. In November, several hundred QAnon activists gathered in Dallas for several weeks in anticipation of this “return.”
Robert Kennedy Jr. began his career as an environmental advocate They slipped into the plotIn January, he was particularly criticized for fueling conspiracy theories, sometimes with anti-Semitic comments, in his speeches about 5G, vaccines and Bill Gates. “Dictatorship” There were vaccinations Worse than Nazi Germany. In 2021, he was banned from Instagram, on which he spread very harsh conspiracy messages about the pandemic and vaccines.
One stop to the anti-vaccine galaxy
CDH says “hundreds of thousands” Subscribers on these two accounts and shared, in its press release, screenshots showing the deletion of these accounts. “Misinformation”.
According to CDH, the ban could be linked to a lawsuit the organization filed against Meta in federal court for an audit. CDH’s YouTube channel was taken down in September 2021.
Constantly criticized for spreading misinformation, Meta tries to steer clear of political content from the 2020 US presidential election and focus on exchanges between relatives and communities of interest.
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