Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., alleged during a Thursday hearing that he was “the first person censored by the Biden administration.”
“I was censored not just by a Democratic administration, I was censored by the Trump administration. I was the first person censored by the Biden administration, two days after he came into office,” Kennedy testified to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, referencing the early 2021 suspension of his Instagram and Facebook accounts. The accounts were restored in June, two months after Kennedy declared his primary challenge to President Joe Biden.
Federal law enforcement officials have held extensive meetings with social media companies and other tech firms to discuss alleged disinformation and other disfavored content. Federal Bureau of Investigation Christopher Wray testified to the Weaponization subcommittee on July 12 that law enforcement officials continued to hold the meetings until federal District Court Judge Terry Doughty issued a nationwide injunction on July 4 prohibiting the practice.
Kennedy, who has long questioned whether or not vaccines cause autism, asserted that he did not spread misinformation on social media. (RELATED: FLASHBACK: RFK Jr. Once Called For Jailing ‘Climate Deniers,’ Punishing Political Opponents)
RFK Jr.: “I was the first person censored by the…Biden administration” pic.twitter.com/cGrFSsdWXN
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 20, 2023
“They had to invent a new word called ‘malinformation’ to censor people like me. There was no misinformation on my Instagram account. Everything put on that account was cited and sourced from reviewed publications or government databases nobody has ever pointed to a single piece of misinformation I published. I was removed for something called malinformation. Malinformation is information that is true that is inconvenient to the government that they don’t want people to hear,” Kennedy continued.
“Censorship is antithetical to our party. It was appalling to my father, my uncle, FDR, Harry Truman,” he added.
The Biden administration attempted to institutionalize its push for tech firms to remove alleged disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation through the creation of a Disinformation Governance Board, housed within the Department of Homeland Security. The Biden administration intended the board, headed by left-wing think tanker Nina Jankowicz, to have a domestic focus, despite the claims of top officials.
DHS scrapped plans for the Board in May 2022 after Jankowicz resigned from her position. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at the time that the White House was not involved in the pause and that it would continue to look for ways to fight misinformation.