BERLIN, GERMANY - AUGUST 29: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nephew of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, speaks to people from a wide spectrum, including coronavirus skeptics, conspiracy enthusiasts, right-wing extremists, religious conservatives, hippies and others gathered under the Victory Column in the city center to hear speeches during a protest against coronavirus-related restrictions and government policy on August 29, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. City authorities had banned the planned protest, citing the flouting of social distancing by participants in a similar march that drew at least 17,000 people a few weeks ago, but a court overturned the ban. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended himself on Thursday from accusations that he spread conspiracy theories online. His controversial remarks have covered topics such as vaccines and race. Despite pleas from various civil rights groups following his recent antisemitic comments, the Democratic presidential candidate testified at a House hearing on government censorship.
GOP members of the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which has a Republican majority, asserted that conservatives have been unjustly targeted by technology companies that work with the federal government to stop online disinformation.
Meanwhile, Democrats on the committee argued that free speech comes with the duty to not pass on misinformation. Studies have not found substantial evidence that social media companies have a bias against conservative posts.
At the hearing, Kennedy doubled down on his statements, saying, “The First Amendment was not written for easy speech. It was written for the speech that nobody likes you for.”
Likewise, the subcommittee’s chairman, Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, claimed that the government asking Twitter to remove a post about the relationship between race and COVID-19 vaccines was censorship. The tweet came after a video was released that showed Kennedy suggesting that COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted” to spare Jewish and Chinese people. He has also likened vaccines to the Holocaust.
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The members of the subcommittee were also hearing testimony from Emma-Jo Morris, a journalist at Breitbart News who reported on Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden‘s son. Morris said that there was an “elaborate censorship conspiracy” that she argued had prevented her from reporting on Hunter.
The U.S. government has largely avoided regulation of the major social media companies, despite civil rights groups raising awareness of misinformation and hate speech.
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