Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s anti-vax nonprofit removed from Facebook and Instagram

During the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-vaxxers have been, to a large degree, far-right MAGA Republicans and evangelical Christian fundamentalists — although former President Donald Trump himself has encouraged vaccination, and former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has tried to put a pro-MAGA spin on the Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines by describing them as “the Trump vaccine.” Democrats have, for the most part, joined President Joe Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s top White House medical adviser, in encouraging vaccination for COVID-19. But one well-known Democrat who is known for his anti-vaxxer views is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who now finds himself at odds with Facebook and Instagram for spreading what those social media outlets consider misinformation. Kennedy leads the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF), a nonprofit anti-vaxxer group. And on Thursday, August 18, its accounts were removed for both Facebook and Instagram, according to the New York Times. Those platforms are owned by their Silicon Valley-based parent company Meta. Sheera Frenkel, a technology reporter for the New York Times and co-author of the 2021 book “An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination,” explains, “In an e-mailed newsletter, Children’s Health Defense said Facebook and Instagram had taken down its accounts after a 30-day ban…
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