I agree anti Vaxers are ridiculous. But just to play devils advocate. What if there ever was a dangerous vaccine out there, wouldn’t we want people to be able to speak out?
Honestly I don’t have any solutions. I don’t like either option.
Honestly I don’t have any solutions. I don’t like either option.
Most of us agree anti-vaxxers are ill-informed and that adopting their beliefs causes people to engage in patterns of behavior (avoiding vaccines) that are not in what we think is their best interest.
What about other beliefs? If someone posts a video saying that they don't think seatbelts are effective in preventing injuries during car crashes, should they be suppressed?
What about someone who claims that vaping is safe and popularizes the practice? Do we ban that?
It's easy to pick a few almost-universally hated groups and rally against them: racists, anti-vaxxers, flat earthers. Few things are that cut-and-dry. And watching the widespread rise of "benevolent censorship" wrt COVID-19 has really shown me how far we can take the idea of "protect people from information that could harm them".
For example, I recently submitted a highly controversial 7500+ word blog post that advocated for ending lockdown in the US. I got some matters of scientific fact wrong (and have since addressed or am currently working on addressing those), i.e. things like accounting for the phenomenom of "overshoot". Some sections probably did not give a perfectly fair view of "each side" and could be/were criticized as being cherry-picked. And I think I got a lot of things very right. I've now had 9 people e-mail me in the last 24 hours saying that they tried to share my post on Facebook/Messenger and that the entire domain is now blocked for violating the community guidelines. Is that something worth banning? It advocates for a position that could easily be argued will lead to death, and therefore reading it could kill people. So it's a very easy argument to make, if you take the position that we should suppress "harmful" information.
As I said at the start of this thread, I basically reject the entire concept of "disinformation" for that reason; it inevitably gets used to suppress even the most good-faith and well-researched (or in my case, somewhat-well-researched :P) arguments. Therefore I think the entire concept is inherently dangerous to a free society.
Okay, that's enough rambling for one night. I'll let everyone else duke it out :)
This issue will pass but now they have a precedent.
> The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, ..., as amended, created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), a no-fault alternative to the traditional tort system. It provides compensation to people found to be injured by certain vaccines. Even in cases in which such a finding is not made, petitioners may receive compensation through a settlement.
> The VICP was established after lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers and healthcare providers threatened to cause vaccine shortages and reduce vaccination rates. The Program began accepting petitions (also called claims) in 1988.
The current anti-vaccination movement began largely over concern that thiomersal preservative in many childhood vaccines was causing autism. Although multiple epidemiological studies indicated that there was no appreciable risk, "the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) asked vaccine makers to remove thiomersal from vaccines as quickly as possible as a precautionary measure", and it was ~gone by 2001.[1]
0) https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/about/index.html
Also, calling stuff "FUD" is a classic strategy to escape responsibility. For example, the tobacco industry claimed that lung cancer risk was FUD for decades. Other examples include groundwater pollution, asbestos, and lead paint.
Not to mention human overpopulation. Which is arguably the root cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. Along with HIV and Ebola, and likely more to come. And of course global climate change, which may well kick serious ass in coming decades.
Maybe the solution is a law that if someone posts/airs clearly wrong facts. Or if someone's theories/facts... Get later disproven they need to post/air a correction at the same time at least as long (maybe better twice as long) and give it as much prominence. Maybe then outlets would be more careful about posting obvious untruths.
I am aware that the ad agency behind the "tobacco doesn't cause cancer" campaign got into the "lead paint is safe" and other pro-industry campaigns, including the climate change contrarians. And the Tea Party. Funded by folks like the Koch brothers.
> Maybe then outlets would be more careful about posting obvious untruths.
That's a very slippery slope. As I've said before, you may be surprised when you become the pariah.
The law didn't get enacted just to prevent lawsuits, but also to compensate those who were injured.
> The implications in your comment are actively harmful to the public health.
That way lies totalitarianism.
For example, there's considerable pressure in many countries to outlaw secure end-to-end encryption. To protect against terrorists, child abusers, and other criminals.
So how would we feel if support for secure end-to-end encryption were censored in social media?