Robert F. Kennedy Jr. banned from social media, campaign pages blocked.
Elon Musk Invites Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Twitter Spaces Discussion
Twitter owner Elon Musk invited Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a discussion on his Twitter Spaces, coming after Kennedy claimed his campaign was blocked on Meta-owned Instagram.
Interesting… when we use our TeamKennedy email address to set up @instagram accounts we get an automatic 180-day ban. Can anyone guess why that’s happening? pic.twitter.com/0G8oRnoXTv
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 2, 2023
“Interesting… when we use our TeamKennedy email address to set up @instagram accounts we get an automatic 180-day ban. Can anyone guess why that’s happening?” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on Twitter. An accompanying image shows that Instagram said it “suspended” his “Team Kennedy” account and that there “are 180 days remaining to disagree” with the company’s decision.
In response to his post, Musk wrote: “Would you like to do a Spaces discussion with me next week?” Kennedy agreed, saying he would do it Monday at 2 p.m. ET.
Hours later, Kennedy wrote that Instagram “still hasn’t reinstated my account, which was banned years ago with more than 900k followers.” He argued that “to silence a major political candidate is profoundly undemocratic.”
Social Media Censorship
It’s not the first time that either Facebook or Instagram has taken action against Kennedy. In 2021, Instagram banned him from posting claims about vaccine safety and COVID-19.
After he was banned by the platform, Kennedy said that his Instagram posts raised legitimate concerns about vaccines and were backed by research. His account was banned just days after Facebook and Instagram announced they would block the the spread of what they described as misinformation about vaccines, including research saying the shots cause autism, are dangerous, or are ineffective.
“This kind of censorship is counterproductive if our objective is a safe and effective vaccine supply,” he said at the time.
Kennedy, the son of former presidential candidate and Sen. Robert Kennedy, has for years helped to popularize the assertion that vaccines are liked to autism. Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense, before it was also banned in 2022, has claimed that tetanus vaccines can cause infertility and that polio vaccines are actually responsible for a rise in polio cases worldwide.
Alternative Social Media Sites
However, critics of Big Tech monopolies have said social media companies should not be the arbiters of what can and cannot be posted, saying that some content moderation policies around “misinformation” is tantamount to censorship.
That criticism reached a boiling point in early 2021 after former President Donald Trump was banned on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other Big Tech sites before his accounts were mostly reinstated. A number of other prominent conservatives and individuals who questioned mainstream narratives were also banned in 2021 and 2022.
Because of the widespread bans that were handed down, some alternative social media websites like Trump’s Truth Social, video platform Rumble, Gettr, and others were created. When Musk bought Twitter late last year, he
- made headlines
- by tweeting
- “Just want to say thanks to all the people who use Twitter… Looking forward to creating something special for you!”
The Epoch Times has approached Instagram for comment.
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