Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK) filed a lawsuit against Google earlier this month, alleging the tech company censored him illegally on its subsidiary platform YouTube. According to the complaint filed August 4, RFK claims that YouTube’s “misinformation” guidelines were developed with help from the federal government—an unconstitutional First Amendment violation.
RFK, currently running against incumbent President Joe Biden for the Democratic Party nomination, claims that YouTube videos of his interviews and speeches were throttled or deleted by the platform for violating misinformation guidelines. Specifically, videos in which the candidate critiqued the government’s pandemic response and questioned the safety and efficacy of COVID vaccines were removed.
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RFK, a longtime vaccine skeptic, claims that this censorship did not stem from his statements being false but rather from the government’s efforts to suppress contradicting narratives and punish Biden’s political opponents.
“YouTube has become an important platform for political discourse in America, a digital town square that voters trust as a place to get news and opinions about the issues of the day, a place where people can communicate about matters of public concern,” a statement from the Kennedy campaign read in part. “Nonetheless, Google has censored countless Americans for views that run counter to the narratives of the U.S. government. RFK is just the most high-profile victim of this censorship campaign. This degree of censorship of a major presidential candidate is unprecedented in American history.”
RFK is no stranger to these censorship efforts from his political rivals—and he’s equally familiar with making controversial and inflammatory remarks. Just last month, his fellow Democrats attempted to censor him during a censorship hearing. As Valuetainment reported at the time, RFK appeared before the Republican-majority House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government to testify about the effects of government censorship on his campaign. After his opening statement, Democrats called for him to be censored based on previous statements about COVID-19 being ethnically targeted against White and Black people.
In response to the suit, federal Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins scheduled an emergency hearing for Wednesday afternoon in San Jose, California to assess RFK’s request for a restraining order against Google. This motion would prevent any further censorship against Kennedy until a jury can be convened for the case.
“Google will not suffer any harm from being ordered not to censor Mr. Kennedy during his campaign. But society will suffer if the censorship continues,” said Scott Street, the attorney leading the litigation.
Google responded by denying any wrongdoing and rejecting the allegations of both censorship and government coordination. “YouTube applies its Community Guidelines independently, transparently, and consistently, regardless of political viewpoint,” a Google spokesperson said on Tuesday. “These claims are meritless, and we look forward to refuting them.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s full complaint against Google and YouTube can be read below in its entirety:
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