Facebook Bans Major US Anti-Vaccination Group Children's Health Defense for Spreading Covid-19 Misinformation

Photo Credit: Meta/Facebook

Facebook owner Meta said on Thursday that it has kicked the most influential US anti-vaccination group from the social media network for spreading Covid-19 misinformation. Children's Health Defense (CHD), which has been a critic of Covid vaccines, quickly accused Meta of suppressing their free speech rights. CHD founder Robert Kennedy Jr., nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy, said in a press release, "Facebook is here acting as a surrogate for the federal government's crusade against tough government policies." All criticism can be silenced."

The group's Facebook and Instagram accounts were suspended on Wednesday, Meta spokesman Aaron Simpson told AFP. The ban came after repeated violations of Meta's misinformation rules.

CHD said its social media accounts were followed by millions of people, and claimed Meta's action was surprising.

In a release, the group shared a screen capture that showed messages saying it would suspend accounts for violating Meta policies regarding "false information that could cause real-world harm." has been given.

CHD claimed the ban may be related to a lawsuit it filed against Meta that accused the tech company of violating free speech rights by relying on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Violating what information about CoVID-19 is scientifically supported.

The anti-vaccine group has appealed a lower court's ruling against it in the lawsuit, according to legal filings.

In other news, American teenagers have ditched Facebook over the past seven years, preferring to spend time on video-sharing sites YouTube and TikTok, according to survey data from the Pew Research Center released Wednesday. Came. TikTok has "emerged as the top social media platform for American youth" while Google runs it.

YouTube "stands out as the most common platform used by teenagers," the report's authors wrote. Pew's data comes as Facebook owner Meta is in a battle with TikTok for social media supremacy, trying to retain as many users as possible. A multi-billion dollar ad-driven business.

About 95 percent of the teens surveyed said they used YouTube, while 67 percent said they were likely to use TikTok, the report said. Only 32 percent of teens surveyed said they log into Facebook -- a big drop from 71 percent who reported being users. During a similar survey some seven years ago