How social networks gave up on 2020 election lies
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
On tech platforms these days you can get away with just about anything, as long as you’re running for president.
Take Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. A leading anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, Kennedy lost his Instagram account in January 2021 when he tried to scare people away from getting the covid-19 vaccine. His nonprofit organization, Children’s Health Defense, lost its account the following year for falsely warning that the covid vaccine harmed people’s organs and was dangerous to pregnant women.
Platforms establish policies against spreading medical misinformation because they can spread information at a high speed and with few checks on its accuracy. It’s particularly important to enforce those policies on large accounts, like Kennedy’s,…
