RFK Jr lectures social media sites on First Amendment after YouTube memory-holed his 'dissenting views'

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RFK Jr says YouTube ‘wrong’ for removing interview over vaccine misinformation policy

Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who's challenging President Biden in the 2024 primaries, was interviewed by Fox News Digital on June 20, 2023, during a campaign stop in Nashua, New Hampshire.

NASHUA, N.H. – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says social media giant YouTube was wrong to take down videos of COVID-19 vaccine discussions and an interview in which the Democrat presidential candidate said that chemicals in the water are turning kids transgender.

"I think it’s wrong. I think we’re living in [a] new era where these big social media sites have now replaced the public square," Kennedy said Tuesday in an interview with Fox News Digital. "I think they really ought to have a sense of obligation to be the forums for open debate on issues – even if the issues are complex or difficult."

The environmental lawyer and high-profile vaccine critic, who’s a scion of arguably the nation’s most famous family political dynasty, said "the First Amendment was not passed to protect safe speech. It was passed to protect difficult speech, speech that people don’t want to hear. And I think the social media sites need to really have to look carefully at their responsibility."

Kennedy and podcast host Jordan Peterson tweeted Sunday that the video-sharing website had taken down their interview from an episode of Peterson’s show and accused the social media platform of censorship and interfering with a presidential campaign.

WHY YOUTUBE SAYS IT REMOVED A ROBERT F KENNEDY JR INTERVIEW

Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stands alongside a bust of his late uncle, President John F. Kennedy, outside City Hall in Nashua, New Hampshire, on June 20, 2023. (Fox News/Paul Steinhauser)

Kennedy, who's mounting a primary challenge against President Joe Biden, told Fox News during a campaign stop interview in Nashua, New Hampshire, that "I have dissenting views on some of these issues, but we ought to be able to debate that. We ought to be able to debate it in a way that’s congenial and respectful and is fact-based and not employ censorship."

In the interview with Peterson, Kennedy said that "a lot of the sexual dysphoria" America is seeing comes from exposure to chemicals in the water.

"I think a lot of the problems we see in kids, particularly boys, it’s probably underappreciated on that how much of that is coming from chemical exposures, including a lot of the sexual dysphoria that we’re seeing," Kennedy said.

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"I mean, they’re swimming through a soup of toxic chemicals today, and many of those are endocrine disruptors. There’s atrazine throughout our water supply," the Democrat presidential candidate said.

"Atrazine, by the way, if you in a lab put atrazine in a tank full of frogs, it will chemically castrate and forcefully feminize every frog in there," Kennedy said. "And 10% of the frogs, the male frogs will turn into fully viable females able to produce viable eggs if it’s doing that to frogs. It could, there’s a lot of other evidence that it’s doing to human beings as well."

A Google spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement that YouTube "removed a video from the Jordan Peterson channel for violating YouTube’s general vaccine misinformation policy, which prohibits content that alleges that vaccines cause chronic side effects, outside of rare side effects that are recognized by health authorities."

Additionally, the spokesperson said the company "removed a video from the Jordan Peterson channel featuring a conversation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr." and that Google's "Community Guidelines apply equally to all creators on our platform, regardless of political viewpoint."

"Under our general vaccine misinformation policies, we remove false claims about currently administered vaccines that are approved and confirmed to be safe and effective by local health authorities and the WHO. This includes content that falsely alleges that approved vaccines are dangerous and cause chronic health effects, claims that vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction of disease, or contains misinformation on the substances contained in vaccines will be removed. This would include content that falsely says that approved vaccines cause autism, cancer or infertility, or that substances in vaccines can track those who receive them."

"Our policies not only cover specific routine immunizations like for measles or Hepatitis B, but also apply to general statements about vaccines," the spokesperson wrote. "Content that would otherwise violate our Community Guidelines may stay on YouTube when it has Educational, Documentary, Scientific, or Artistic (EDSA) context, such as providing countervailing views to the remarks that violate our policies."

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Kennedy, speaking with Fox News, also reiterated that he's long been asking a prominent vaccine scientist to join him in a debate.

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Elon Musk and Joe Rogan touched off a firestorm over the weekend as they pushed Dr. Peter Hotez to debate Kennedy on Rogan's popular podcast.

Rogan offered Hotez $100,000 to the charity of his choice if he agreed to debate Kennedy on Rogan's program after Hotez slammed a recent interview Kennedy had on Rogan's program as "awful" and "nonsense." Kennedy repeated unproven claims he has long made that vaccines cause autism, and he and Rogan also discussed what they viewed as the dangers of 5G technology and the power of the pharmaceutical industry.

"I’ll debate anybody anywhere on this issue. I’ve been asking Peter Hotez to debate me for years. But he has refused to do it," Kennedy said Tuesday.

"If you’re a scientist and you cannot defend your science, there’s something wrong with it," he added. "I think it would be healthy for our country. I think we ought to have the debate. I think the American people deserve that kind of debate on every public health issue. All science is ultimately rooted in reason and logic and we ought to be able to defend it."

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Hotez said on Twitter over the weekend that he was "stalked" outside his home Sunday morning by two people espousing anti-vaccines views and urging him to debate Kennedy.

Asked for a reaction, Kennedy said that "nobody should be harassed for their points of view. That’s un-American, too."