The outspoken anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was banned from Instagram, a spokesman said.
His account was removed on Wednesday for “repeated shared claims about the coronavirus or vaccines,” a Facebook spokesman who owns Instagram said.
Kennedy’s Facebook page was still active Thursday morning.
Asked if the account would also be banned, the spokesman said: “We do not automatically disable accounts in our programs because the accounts can be placed on our various services over different things.”
On Monday, Facebook announced that efforts are being expanded to include accounts spreading the false allegations about the coronavirus pandemic or vaccines, including the Covid-19 shots. The company said it also makes it harder to find such accounts via the search function.
“We continue to improve search results on our platforms. When people search for vaccine or Covid-19-related content on Facebook, we promote relevant, authoritative results and provide our third-party resources to connect people with expert vaccine information,” said a press. release states. “On Instagram, in addition to authoritative results in Search, we’ll make it harder in the coming weeks to find search accounts that discourage people from being vaccinated.”
Kennedy, the son of the late former U.S. senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, has spoken out against vaccinations for years. In May 2019, several of his family members wrote in an opinion that his controversial allegations “helped spread dangerous misinformation.”
“We love Bobby. He’s one of the greatest champions in the area,” Sister Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, brother Joseph P. Kennedy II and cousin Maeve Kennedy McKean wrote for Politico. “On vaccines, however, he is wrong.”
Kennedy did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
