Facebook parent company Meta on Thursday (August 18) announced that it has banned one of the United States’ most influential anti-vaccination groups, the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) from its social media platform for spreading misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.
Talking to AFP Meta spokesperson Aaron Simpson said that CHD’s Facebook and Instagram accounts have been closed on Wednesday and that the ban was placed after repeated violations of Meta’s misinformation rules.
CHD which was founded by the nephew of the late president John F. Kennedy has accused Meta of acting as a proxy for the government and attempting to stifle its free speech rights and muzzle criticism of the administration.
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The group said that its ‘de-platformed’ social media accounts had hundreds of thousands of followers and that the ban caught them off guard.
Robert Kennedy Jr., the founder of CHD, said in a news release that “Facebook is acting here as a surrogate for the federal government’s crusade to silence all criticism of draconian government policies.”
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The organisation published a screenshot of the ban notification that says that the accounts had been suspended for breaking Meta’s rules on “misinformation that could lead to real world harm.”
Screenshot of the notification informing CHD of the account ban. (Image courtesy: CHD Website)
CHD also contended that the ban “dovetails” a lawsuit it filed against Meta, charging the tech giant with violating free speech rights by relying on the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to determine the scientific validity of Covid-19 information.
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As per the information published on the group’s website regarding the lawsuit “CHD alleges Facebook entered into an agreement with the White House to censor an entire category of speech, de-platformed CHD Chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and removed CHD’s “donate” button on Facebook, directing traffic instead to a third-party fact-checking organization that solicits donations.”
The district court in the Northern District of California dismissed the case in June 2021, and according to court documents the anti-vaccine group has appealed against the decision.
(With inputs from agencies)
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