We’re BACK on Facebook!

We started our original Dr. Rath Health Foundation page on Facebook back in 2012. For several years it provided us with a useful platform to share news and information relating to our work. But as the COVID-19 pandemic began to pick up speed in early 2020, everything changed. Almost overnight, Facebook began the mass removal of health-related content that, while factually accurate, contradicted the status quo.

After several instances in which we supposedly violated the platform’s COVID-19 content policies, we were prevented from posting on our page and it was eventually deleted. Now, however, following the election of President Donald Trump in the United States, the platform’s co-founder Mark Zuckerberg claims he wants to restore free expression on the site. We would genuinely like to believe him. So, with the launch of our new page on Facebook, we plan to put this to the test.

Accused of publishing ‘misleading content’

Our first so-called ‘content violation’ on Facebook occurred in late April 2020, when we published an article describing how Professor Luc Montagnier, the late Nobel Prize-winning scientist who co-discovered HIV, had appeared on French television and stated that the virus responsible for COVID-19 was created in a laboratory. Our article was supported by a video excerpt from the program. The post quickly went viral on social media and went on to be seen by more than 1.5 million people on our website and millions more on other sites. Facebook responded by labeling the article ‘misleading content’ and proceeded to ban posts from suggesting that COVID-19 was man-made.

As the pandemic wore on, Facebook’s interventions gradually became even more authoritarian. In March 2021 it announced plans to add labels carrying information from the World Health Organization to all posts about COVID-19 vaccines. Not coincidentally, the move came as multiple European countries  began suspending use of the AstraZeneca vaccine following reports of serious blood clots occurring.

By this point Facebook was aggressively removing almost any high-profile COVID-19 content that departed from the official narrative. In the second quarter of 2020 alone, more than 7 million posts were removed from the social media site for supposedly publishing false information about the coronavirus. As such, when we were eventually locked out of the Dr. Rath Health Foundation page for repeated policy violations, we were anything but surprised.

Pressure from the Biden administration?

Speaking in a recent episode of ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast, Zuckerberg claimed the Biden administration had put pressure on Facebook to take down memes about COVID-19 and, when it refused, had opened investigations into the company. He also asserted that the administration had pressured Meta, Facebook’s parent company, to remove content that was factually accurate but inconvenient, such as information about COVID-19 vaccine side effects. He particularly highlighted the government pushing for the suppression of posts about heart problems linked to the vaccine.

The timing of Zuckerberg’s revelations coincides with significant policy changes at Meta, including the dismantling of the company’s so-called ‘fact-checking’ team. These moves were announced alongside Zuckerberg’s appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast, thus suggesting a strategic pivot in response to the now rapidly changing political and legal landscape in the United States. The changes were essentially framed as an effort to restore free expression on Meta’s platforms, with plans to implement a user-driven fact-checking system, similar to that already used on the Elon Musk-owned platform, X.

Will Mark Zuckerberg really restore free expression on Facebook? Will science- and evidence-based health information be allowed to flourish on the platform in future, even when it threatens the interests of the pharmaceutical ‘business with disease’? Frankly, at this point, nobody knows. But in the months ahead, we plan to put these questions to the test. We invite you to follow us and support the right for freedom of speech in science-based natural health.