During the last election cycle, Meta’s Facebook and Google-owned YouTube censored now-Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for suggesting links between acetaminophen or vaccines and childhood autism, links which the federal government is now officially investigating.
President Donald Trump announced during a Monday press conference that HHS and its subsidiary agencies are now investigating potential links between the development of autism or ADHD and the use of the common pain and fever reliever acetaminophen during pregnancy. Kennedy and Trump expressed concerns over certain childhood vaccines. The Trump administration therefore recommended limited use of acetaminophen for pregnant women and adjustments to the childhood vaccine schedule.
The announcement is a significant victory for free speech as these statements were anathema on social media where Kennedy himself was censored making these same suggestions.
President Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr. announce the dangers of acetaminophen in mothers and babies as well as the dangers for babies and toddlers of the combo vaccines. Groundbreaking. #Hope #Savechildren #MAGA pic.twitter.com/4qclEWcPt3
— Williamson County GOP (@williamsontngop) September 22, 2025
In a January 2023 Facebook post, Kennedy, who chaired a vaccine-critical organization called Children’s Health Defense, shared an article published by the organization headlined “Exclusive: Hundreds of ‘Tylenol Lawsuits’ Allege Retailers, Manufacturers Knew Acetaminophen During Pregnancy Could Cause Autism, ADHD.” Facebook imposed a fact-check label asserting that the post was “Missing context. Independent fact-checkers say this information could mislead people.” The platform then linked to a Health Feedback fact-check titled, “What do we know about the possible link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism?”
By June of that same year, YouTube deleted Dr. Jordan Peterson’s podcast interview with Kennedy who was running for president at the time. During the interview, Kennedy commented on “the links between autism and vaccines.” In a statement to MRC Free Speech America, the platform claimed that the video violated “YouTube’s general vaccine misinformation policy, which prohibits content that alleges that vaccines cause chronic side effects, outside of rare side effects that are recognized by health authorities.”
These censorship cases are only two examples of Big Tech’s years long history of censoring vaccine-related posts. In February 2022, MRC revealed over 800 cases of Big Tech platforms including Facebook and YouTube censoring the COVID-19 debate, which of course included vaccines. MRC has continued to log over 500 additional cases of COVID-19 related censorship since then in its unique CensorTrack database.
Free speech is under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
