RFK Jr.'s Children's Health Defense files lawsuit against media giants for alleged speech violations

The defendants include The Washington Post, the BBC, The Associated Press and Reuters.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Washington, D.C., May 16, 2023
By Madeleine Hubbard

The Children's Health Defense, a nonprofit founded by Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., partnered with other vaccine-skeptics such as Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft to file a lawsuit against major media giants for allegedly violating antitrust laws and the U.S. Constitution by colluding with tech giants to censor news online. 

The 108-page lawsuit was filed last week in a Louisiana-based federal district court against The Washington Post, the BBC, The Associated Press and Reuters, all of whom are members of the Trusted News Initiative (TNI). 

The TNI is described by the BBC as a "unique global partnership bringing together organisations across media and technology to tackle harmful disinformation in real time." Other members of the partnership include Google, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft. 

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit say that they were "censored, banned, de-platformed, shadow banned or otherwise penalized by the Big Tech firms partnering with the [Trusted News Initiative], because the views and content they published were deemed 'misinformation' or 'disinformation,'" according to the Defender, which publishes articles about the Children's Health Defense. 

The case was originally filed in January in Texas, but the plaintiffs were forced to withdraw it and refile it in Louisiana due to what they said was a clerical error in the court.

The plaintiffs in the original case included the Children's Health Defense, Kennedy, Hoft, "Ringside Politics" radio host Jeff Crouere, The Truth About Cancer and The Truth About Vaccines founders Ty and Charlene Bollinger and others. All plaintiffs in the first case also filed the second case, except for Kennedy, who is on leave from the Children's Health Defense as he pursues his presidential bid. Kennedy is still acting as volunteer legal counsel, per the non-profit.

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.