Censoring RFK Jr. is only making his voice louder
YouTube’s attempt to stifle presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s voice has backfired spectacularly.
After the platform scrapped his interview with Jordan Peterson — citing vaccine misinformation policies — the clip that Kennedy instead posted on Twitter has racked up a stunning 4.5 million views in just a matter of days.
Since announcing his candidacy, Kennedy has consistently been censored for his highly controversial stances on vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry.
ABC retroactively censored portions of an interview with him, citing “false claims about the Covid-19 vaccines” and “misleading claims” about vaccines and autism.
“We’ve used our editorial judgment in not including extended portions of that exchange in our interview,” ABC said.
The exact claims that ABC removed are not known — which, of course, only makes people more curious.
Instagram similarly suspended Kennedy in 2021 due to statements about the Covid-19 vaccine but ultimately reinstated his account upon his campaign announcement.
Meanwhile, vaccine researcher and political commentator Dr. Peter Hotez has flatly refused to debate RFK Jr. on the Joe Rogan Experience — even after the podcaster offered a $100,000 pledge to the charity of Hotez’s choice.
Many of RFK Jr.’s claims are widely refuted by scientific literature and experts alike.
And yet, rather than critically engage with him on their merit or lack thereof, the response has been to dub him an “anti-vaxxer” and hit the mute button.
(Or, in the case of Dr. Hotez, who dubbed Kennedy a “shirtless Putin,” to stoop to name calling instead).
But the campaign to shut down Kennedy seems to have only fueled his popularity. He is presently scoring higher favorability ratings than either Trump or Biden and hovering just under 20% in Democratic primary polls.
Meanwhile, the headlines about him being censored keep rolling in and attracting all the more attention to his most controversial claims.
It’s a classic case of censorship backfiring — a phenomenon dubbed the “Streisand effect.”
The term is a reference to when Barbara Streisand sued a photographer in 2003 over a photo documenting the erosion of a Malibu cliff that happened to also show her mansion in the shot.
But the singer’s public retaliation drew more attention than the image itself originally did.
The Streisand effect has been on grand display in recent years.
An example worth learning from: Kicking Trump off Twitter only enabled him to create a cozy echo chamber on Truth Social, where he can pose as a martyr under siege and rally his followers while also being totally insulated from pushback.
Censorship can create forbidden fruit, and humans are curious creatures.
Take the most challenging book of 2021, “Gender Queer” by Maia Kolbabe.
Republican politicians in states including North and South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia called the memoir “pornographic” and dozens of schools removed it from libraries.
The result?
A 130% increase in print sales, according to a May 2022 report by NPD BookScan.
It’s hardly any surprise that screaming “Don’t look at this!” makes people look at something — or at least assume it must be worth hiding.
It’s especially true in the post-pandemic era.
Institutional trust has stooped to an all-time low after genuine skeptics of official Covid-19 messaging were dismissed as conspiracy theorists or shuttered out of their social media accounts for dissenting from the accepted narrative.
Censoring controversial figures — whether they’re speaking unspoken truths or spewing complete nonsense — fuels distrust.
And that distrust will ultimately fuel RFK Jr.’s campaign.
Censoring a political candidate is a fundamentally undemocratic instinct.
The voting public should be able to hear a presidential platform in its entirety.
And they should be trusted to make up their own minds without being fed a pre-chewed, selectively edited narrative.
Kennedy himself put it best: “Social media is the modern equivalent of the town square. How can democracy function if only some candidates have access to it?”
When the media and social media platforms alike seem less interested in winning over minds and more interested in covering up ears, is it any wonder people will start tuning into the things they aren’t supposed to hear?
