Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent candidate in the upcoming US presidential election, has announced that he filed a lawsuit against Meta (Facebook and Instagram) in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
Kennedy alleges that the two platforms censored a video, the documentary “Who is Bobby Kennedy,” that is part of his presidential campaign.
We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.
The filing, submitted by Kennedy and his political action committee (PAC), accuses Meta of using its platforms to prevent users from watching, sharing, or posting links to the video, a short time after it was first released.
The platforms are accused of suppressing a video about the presidential candidate’s career and his criticism of vaccines as a result of the US government’s repeated demands that tech companies do so.
To bolster this argument, the filing refers to Murthy v. Missouri, currently in the Supreme Court, where the allegation is that the White House pressured and colluded with social media powerhouses to censor content it disfavors, including around vaccines.
Meta first blocked the documentary on May 3 – two days later formally reversing this decision, describing it as “a mistake” – but Kennedy maintains that the film is still demoted and shadow-banned, and otherwise sabotaged in terms of visibility.
He also made a point that the case is not only about free speech suppression, i.e., a First Amendment issue, but also, interference in the democratic process.
“Meta is censoring a biographical film about a major candidate in an election year,” Kennedy stressed – and one might add, this is happening on some of the major and most influential platforms.
This is not the politician and activist’s “first rodeo” trying to take Big Tech to task for, in his view, unjustifiably censoring his content.
A lawsuit he brought against Google (YouTube) for removing his videos critical of Covid vaccines’ efficacy is now being considered in a court of appeals. In that case, Kennedy also accused Google of making the decision to block his content in collusion with the current government.
