“A real dictator”. Thus Robert F. Kennedy Jr. describes Dr. Anthony Fauci
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., grandson of former US President John F. Kennedy, is best known for his political commitment and the environmental causes he fought for as a lawyer.
Beginning in 2005, Kennedy began shifting her focus from politics to science, specifically vaccines. Over the past decade, Kennedy has lashed out, with false claims and without any evidence, at the US medical establishment which he claims is lying about vaccine safety.
In early February, just the day before Instagram blocked its page for spreading false information about COVID-19 and vaccines, Kennedy gave an exclusive interview to NewsGuard, talking about the COVID-19 vaccine and the pandemic. coronavirus. Emphasizing his experience in evaluating scientific issues, such as those encountered throughout his career as an environmental lawyer, Kennedy lashed out at Big Pharma.
The full interview with Kennedy (edited for reasons of length and clarity), is available at this link on the NewsGuard website, along with fact-checking dozens of Kennedy’s statements in support of his theories that, for example, the Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous. The interview lasted half an hour, but debunking Kennedy’s claims took a team of four reporters several hours of work.
Here you find Kennedy’s statements and our point-by-point fact-checking.
I am an anti-Vaxxer: Children’s Health Defense, la rete di RFK Jr. in Europe
by Virginia Padovese, Marie Richter, Chine Labbé and Kendrick McDonald
Instagram (owned by Facebook) blocked Kennedy’s personal account, but the Facebook page of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the non-profit organization headed by Kennedy, is still active and contributing to the worldwide expansion of the organization. In August 2020, CHD launched a new site – ChildrensHealthDefense.eu – with content specifically aimed at a European audience. “The launch of this organization, Children’s Health Defense, in Europe is a ‘bridgehead’, an announcement to the world. We are building institutions to fight your institutions,” said RFK Jr. during a European site launch event.
During the August 29, 2020 demonstration in Berlin against the lockdown, RFK Jr. gave a speech in which he said that the pandemic has given governments “the ability to impose population controls that the population would otherwise never have accepted – creating institutions and mechanisms to orchestrate and enforce obedience “.
In detail: Many European disinformation outlets translated and published Kennedy’s speech in Berlin, amplifying the reach of his conspiracy messages and offering CHD a worldwide audience.
- At least ten websites in German, five in Italian and five in French (rated as generally unreliable by NewsGuard) have posted a transcript or video of Kennedy’s speech, including JournalistenWatch.com, ByoBlu.com, and AubeDigitale.com.
- RFK Jr. referred to the speech given by his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, in West Berlin in 1963. Several French sites and the Oltre.tv site in Italy (all considered unreliable by NewsGuard), described the speech by RFK of 2021 in Berlin as a “historian”.
- FranceSoir, a French website that recently published numerous false and unsubstantiated claims about COVID-19, spoke to RFK Jr. two days after his speech in Berlin. “If you come to France, I certainly invite youeditorial director Xavier Azalbert told Kennedy at the end of the interview.
- In an interview with the German edition of RT, RFK Jr. falsely claimed that no vaccine recommended in the United States has been tested against placebo. In the United States, “RT America is the only place where we can talk about a lot of these topics”Kennedy said, adding: “Unfortunately we have to go to Russia, to Russian TV, to tell the truth.”
In some cases, Kennedy’s network expansion has leveraged existing connections between CHD and no vaxes in Europe.
- The Italian site Corvelva.it became a partner of CHD in February 2019 and its name appears in a list of partner sites listed on a CHD page along with other related group sites in the United States, Germany and Canada.
- In an article from May 2020, Kennedy quotes Antonietta Gatti, wife of researcher Stefano Montanari, owner of the StefanoMontanari.net site. In July 2020, both the Montanari website and CHD published a letter from Dr. Gatti in support of the no vax movement, in which Gatti claims that “Italy has been sold to Big Pharma and has become a huge laboratory in which they are conducted population experiments “. Gatti writes to Kennedy: “We would all be very grateful if you could inform your people of what is happening in Italy and if you could write an appeal to encourage Italians to support this party which, at the moment, is the only possibility to make a voice other than that heard. of the regime “.
- In April 2020, the Swiss French-language site Antipresse.net, which published false and misleading information about vaccines and the COVID-19 pandemic, republished a CHD article and explained its interest in the popularity that RFK Jr. is leading to the no vax movement thanks to its name. “It is rare for one member of the US establishment to attack another so head-on and with such serious accusations.”, wrote the site. “But we know the Kennedys like to live dangerously.”
Why should we care: Antipresse.net’s statement sheds light on what could be one of the main reasons for the warm welcome Kennedy and his group are receiving in Europe (not to mention the United States). It is seen as an establishment member willing to align with anti-establishment groups, giving authority and visibility to their cause. Precisely during the vaccination campaign against COVID-19, public health will have to continue to fight not to see its authority undermined among skeptics who approach conspiracy theories.
How a US video platform has become a safe haven for French conspiracy theorists
by Sophia Tewa and Chine Labbe
Odysee is a dedicated video sharing platform based in the United States. None of his team members speak French, Julian Chandra, marketing director at Odysee, told NewsGuard. However, since its launch in September 2020, this site has become a real phenomenon in France.
In detail: From November 2020 to February 2021, Odysee’s French-language videos were shared on social media far more than those in English. According to data from NewsWhip, a social media intelligence company, 561 videos of Odysee in French appeared on Facebook or Twitter, compared to 120 videos in English. Many videos with the highest levels of engagement (likes and shares) contained conspiracy theories.
- According to SimilarWeb data from February 2021, it seems that 28% of the site’s desktop traffic comes from France. And part of this success is due to conspiracy theories.
- In late 2020, many French conspiracy theorists looked to Odysee after being blocked by more traditional platforms. The French site Numerama has even called Odysee “YouTube of conspiracy theorists”.
- In November 2020, for example, the French conspiracy documentary ‘Hold-Up’ temporarily found space on Odysee after Vimeo removed it. The three-hour documentary – which re-proposes many conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic, including the idea that the virus was created by the Pasteur Institute, a French research institute – was later removed from the platform for copyright infringement. , as Chandra explained to NewsGuard.
Ever since the site’s launch, Odysee CEO Jeremy Kauffman has openly positioned his platform as a freer alternative to YouTube, which, according to Kauffman, had become ‘too rigid’. Yet Chandra told NewsGuard that Odysee doesn’t want to be an equivalent of Parler or Gab, the two openly right-wing, free-speech-oriented social networks that attracted many Trump followers after the former US president was blocked. from Twitter and Facebook. Chandra also added that she does not even want Odysee to be portrayed as a “container of content rejected by other platforms”.
“Odysee is a generalist platform, apolitical in nature … as a company, we don’t endorse or promote anything you see on the platform – it’s just a platform,” Chandra told NewsGuard in a February 2021 telephone interview. you are looking for a platform where controversial personalities meet who have been blocked by other platforms, then we are talking about BitChute or Parler or Rumble. Not Odysee. “
The French success of Odysee in recent months seems to tell another story.
- The video channel Egalite Et Reconciliation by far-right essayist Alain Soral, suspended from YouTube in July 2020, has more than 37,000 subscribers on Odysee. (Egalite Et Reconciliation also has a channel on Gab).
- Silvano Trotta, a well-known YouTuber who has promoted many conspiracy theories turned to Odysee in September 2020, after receiving several warnings on YouTube, worried that his account would be blocked. In a video promoting his new channel – which now boasts more than 56,000 subscribers – Trotta said: “There’s nothing more to be said about YouTube … YouTube’s community rules have come close to those of a cult.”
- QAnon’s French channel Les DeQodeurs, suspended from YouTube, already boasts more than 26,000 followers on Odysee.
Odysee argues that targeting extremist users and conspiratorial accounts is not the platform’s goal. “It’s really interesting that they were able to discover Odysee and adopt him,” Chandra told NewsGuard. “I think it was more a result of them discovering Odysee before we could start advertising it in France,” he added, explaining that a lot of that French content “doesn’t get recorded” in their data. “There isn’t a lot of traffic for us,” he said.
Odysee’s conspiracy content is also shared in English and reaches users in the United States, albeit fewer than in France.
- A video with nearly 100,000 views supports the conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems is responsible for fraud in the November 2020 presidential elections.
Why should we care: The dissemination of this type of content can have a negative effect on the smooth functioning of society if we are talking about democracy or health care. Failure to recognize its great popularity is an obstacle to the fight against disinformation. A search for the word “QAnon” on Odysee, for example, finds several videos claiming that the COVID-19 vaccine is dangerous and that the 2020 US election was ‘stolen’ by Democrats.