Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is facing widespread criticism from political leaders and civil rights organizations after a video surfaced of him making false claims that COVID-19 was designed to attack certain ethnic groups while sparing Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people — a conspiracy theory that drew accusations of antisemitism and racism.

  • Arotrios@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Keep calling out this deranged motherfucker. He’s responsible for countless deaths:

    During the pandemic, Kennedy has become a near-ubiquitous source of false information about COVID-19 and vaccines. Earlier this year, Kennedy was named one of the “Disinformation Dozen” by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which says he and the Children’s Health Defense website are among the top spreaders of false information about vaccines online.

    …note that the Children’s Heath Defense organization is Kennedy’s personal charity, and…

    The AP found links to Children’s Health Defense articles all over Facebook. While many were shared as posts on the pages of fellow anti-vaccine activists, many more could be found in the comments sections on pages that people turn to for reliable information, including official government Facebook pages in all 50 states, and in health departments in nearly every state.
    “The vaccine was not created to save us all from a pandemic. The pandemic was created to get us to take the vaccine and more,” one person wrote in February below a North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Facebook post.
    Then, they linked to a January Children’s Health Defense article that claimed 329 deaths following the COVID-19 shot had been reported to VAERS, a federal vaccine safety surveillance system that has been misused by anti-vaccine activists.
    “Every Friday, the true American hero Robert F Kennedy Jr. pulls the data from the VAERS report. Here is the latest up until 1/22,” the commenter wrote. Another user replied that the comment had been reported for dishonesty, but it was still up 10 months later.

    …as a result:

    Since January, Children’s Health Defense’s COVID-19 vaccine-related posts were shared more frequently on Twitter than links to vaccine content on mainstream sites including CNN, Fox News, NPR and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to Indiana University’s Observatory on Social Media, which tracks COVID-19 vaccine-related content on Twitter. In some weeks, it found, CHD COVID-19 vaccine content was shared more often than that of The New York Times and The Washington Post.

    AP Sauce

      • Arotrios@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        You know what’s really weird? RFK supported Sirhan Sirhan’s release - went against his entire family to do so too. I think the guy has some dark daddy issues.

        • ArugulaZ@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Dude’s got more issues than National Geographic. And is about as useful as post-Fox National Geographic.