“We have removed this account for the repeated batch of corrupted claims about the coronavirus or vaccines,” a Facebook spokesman who owns Instagram said in a statement.
Kennedy, the son of the late former U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, has repeatedly spoken out against vaccines. He urged Congress to grant parents exemptions from the state’s requirements to vaccinate their children. The lifelong Democrat, however, reflects his view against vaccination by saying that he is actually a proponent of safe vaccinations and noting that all his children have been vaccinated.
Kennedy’s Facebook page, with more than 300,000 followers, was still active at the time of publication. The company spokesman said there were no plans to remove the page at this time.
Children’s Health Defense, the non-profit group presided over by Kennedy and who expresses skepticism about the health benefits of vaccines, said he could not immediately comment on Instagram’s actions.
Facebook has struggled for years to crack down on misinformation about vaccines and announced another attempt earlier this week.
The company on Monday announced several ways it intends to better combat misinformation about vaccines, including making it harder to find accounts through Facebook-owned Instagram searches that discourage people from being vaccinated.
The announcement comes a day after CNN Business reported that Instagram has continued to include anti-waxxer accounts in its search results, while Facebook groups are easy to find against vaccine relationships. The findings are of concern to public health experts as the United States is in the midst of its biggest vaccination to address the coronavirus pandemic.