Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Banned From Instagram for Covid Misinformation, Anti-Vaccine Claims

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been permanently banned from Instagram for his anti-vaccine activism and his promotion of false information on the coronavirus pandemic.

Kennedy, the son of former senator and Attorney General Robert Kennedy, is a Democrat known for his previous work as a lawyer to advance environmental causes. He is also a prominent anti-vax proponent who regularly shared Covid misinformation with his 800,000 social media followers.

“We removed this account for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines,” said a spokesman for Facebook, Instagram’s parent company. The spokesman said there aren’t any plans to scrub Kennedy’s Facebook page yet, where he has 300,000 followers.

While Kennedy claims not to be against vaccines that are proven safe, New York Times notes that he has connected vaccines to autism in the past, plus he claimed that being inoculated against the coronavirus is more dangerous than contracting the disease itself. On top of that, Kennedy founded the Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit organization that has also fueled anti-vaxxer positions on social media.

The development suggests Facebook is preparing to launch a new effort to crack down on coronavirus misinformation. The company announced this week that it would scrub posts containing misinformation about the virus, and would revise its policies in order to make it harder to find anti-vax content on the website.