(In April, Jed Rubenfeld, who is currently suspended from his professorship at Yale Law School after an investigation into allegations by his students of sexual harassment, which he has denied, joined CHD’s legal team in the case.) In February, Instagram barred Kennedy “for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines,” according to a representative from Facebook, which owns Instagram, though his profile on that Facebook remains active, as does his Twitter account. In August 2020, Kennedy and the Children’s Health Defense launched a lawsuit against Facebook for helping to “censor valid and truthful speech” and “their smear campaign against Plaintiff,” seeking damages of $5 million or more. And it’s his name recognition that makes him particularly worrisome to groups like the Anti-Vax Watch, which has been documenting Kennedy’s violations of social media misinformation policies. People indulging their conspiracy theories, people indulging ideas that are not based in science, people with alternative warped political agenda, to prevent people from getting vaccines is causing people to get sick and to die.” Recent polls from NPR/Marist and Monmouth University found that between 21% and 25% of American adults questioned don’t plan on getting the COVID-19 vaccine.įor those who aren’t vaccine-suspicious, Kennedy’s is the only name on the list likely to ring any bells. This isn’t some fanciful public policy academic debate that happens in some safe space at a university. William Tong, who led the initiative, says, “They’re putting people at risk. In a letter to Facebook and Twitter leaders sent March 24, attorneys general from 12 states called on the social media behemoths to enforce policies to label misinformation about coronavirus vaccines and ban repeat offenders, writing, “anti-vaccine misinformation continues to spread on your platforms, in violation of your community standards.” Connecticut A.G. But when someone feels that strongly about it and then has a name with a great legacy, a lot of people pay attention to that.” “I don’t get why he is where he is,” Eshoo told Vanity Fair shortly before the hearing, meaning Kennedy. According to a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate and Anti-Vax Watch, the Dozen, which includes Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic practitioner who operates a “natural health” website and lucrative e-commerce business Ty and Charlene Bollinger, known for promoting questionable cancer treatments and Christiane Northrup, who has insinuated in a Facebook video that receiving a vaccination will mean that the patient’s DNA is owned by an ominous and unnamed “they,” are the source of as much as two thirds of all anti-vaccination content shared on Facebook and Twitter. representatives Anna Eshoo, Brett Guthrie, and Billy Long. Kennedy, a central figure in what’s known as the “Disinformation Dozen,” was name-checked by U.S. At a March 25 House congressional hearing titled “Disinformation Nation: Social Media’s Role in Promoting Extremism and Misinformation,” CEOs Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jack Dorsey of Twitter, and Sundar Pichai of Google appeared as witnesses, fielding questions from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on such topics as “censorship,” fact-checking policies, and targeted advertisements. In recent years, Kennedy has become an unlikely North Star to a network of vaccine skeptics. He made a joke about why he did so (“Well, I’m susceptible to flattery”), highlighted his background as a lawyer, and eventually mentioned that Bill Gates is responsible for the “forced” vaccinations of millions of African children. For over an hour, he described his work in what he calls “health advocacy,” including a well-trod story about how, in 2005, a mother showed up on his front porch on the Massachusetts Cape with a stack of medical information over a foot high, demanding that he hear her out about what she saw as a link between vaccines and her son’s autism diagnosis.
There were mask-less handshakes and mask-less hugs and mask-less photo ops, and then Kennedy took the stage. The crowd went wild in the way this crowd is wont: a few with tongue-in-cheek modified sphinx poses, bowing to their guru. Kennedy Jr., California-casual in faded blue jeans and a short-sleeve button-up spangled with whales.
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