Anti-vaxxers are weaponizing Yelp to punish bars that require vaccine proof
technologyreview.com
technologyreview.com
Of course actual anti vaxxers oppose vaccine mandates for the most part, so there's an overlap. But I'm also against private businesses overstepping local governmental mandates and asking for vaccination proof, since I hate the precedent that it sets and it actually does nothing to stop the virus spread (beyond feel good/KYA security theatre). Does that make me an antivaxxer? Well if it does, then the word has lost any useful meaning.
But there is some nuance, if we find that unvaccinated people are actually burdened by the number of businesses outright refusing them that it’s hard to go about their day-to-day “buying groceries” so to speak then there’s a very real case for government to step in and say “hey you have to provide some accommodations.”
This isn’t really manufacturing consent, it’s much much more like ADA regulations where businesses had been accommodating unvaccinated for the past year and are now starting to stop.
People who have skepticism over one particular vaccine, the one for Covid, are not the same as those who refuse ALL vaccines. There is overlap, for obvious reasons, but describing the former as the latter is overly broad, and seems to be an attempt, once again, to paint anyone who disagrees with the manufactured mainstream party line on Covid as a crank.
Vaccines in general are good, and have done a lot of good for humanity. That doesn't mean that it's impossible to make a vaccine that's harmful, especially when said vaccine is rushed, under incredible political and economic pressure, and using completely new technology. Skepticism may or may not be warranted, but it's certainly reasonable.
Furthermore, if a business chooses to turn down customers for a given reason, that policy is public information. It's not abusive to report this information on a service designed to report information about businesses. It's not abusive to share one's opinion of a business on a service designed specifically for that. Time and time again services are built out to solicit public opinion, and then panic ensues when the opinion isn't in keeping with what it's "supposed" to be. This is why Netflix no longer has a star rating system. Too many important people's egos got bruised.
Do people abuse rating systems? Absolutely (just look at the hellish wasteland that is Amazon). But disagreement is not abuse. Having a different opinion is not abuse. And that seems to be the situation here.
Edit: I also note some of the complaints were...overly enthusiastic. Threats of violence, although almost certainly hyperbole, are a bit much. At the same time, people don't like being told to show their papers. Anyone with a basic understanding of human psychology should be able to recognize this. Covid was unfortunate, but it wasn't devastating. We're not talking about the Black Plague here. Requiring Authoritarian State levels of paperwork to go about your daily life is going to piss people off, and rightly so. If things are really that bad, the restaurants shouldn't be open at all. If they aren't, there's no justification for "Papers please!"
Every time I have stumbled across communities of "The vaccine hesitant" in my travels a piece of logic repeated over and over is that it's less risky to take a chance of getting COVID than to definitely expose yourself to spike proteins. The risks of both are unknown, and anybody intellectually honest will acknowledge that COVID has many long term risks including the factors that people point to as risky about the vaccine like spike proteins. They do the evaluation that you will definitely get exposed to risk if you get vaccinated, but you only MIGHT be exposed to COVID.
In this context we're talking not about people masking up, isolating, avoiding browsing in grocery stores, and avoiding ANY exposure to spike proteins through vaccination or COVID. We're talking about people who want to go to bars but also don't want to get vaccinated. These are not cautious people, these are SELFISH people who are unconcerned with remote possibilities of long term risks if they have nothing more than a frivolous incentive to ignore those risks.
Why is it that such people deserve to be held in higher esteem than cranks, who at least to me seem more genuine and consistent? Am I supposed to be naïve to the game the rationalist "Vaccine hesitant" are playing? Wanting to freeride and not face social stigma is attempting to have ones cake and eat it too.
Evidence from the last 4+ years suggests that no, threats of violence are not hyperbole and should absolutely be taken seriously. Especially in a country where there are more firearms than people.
Why? The bars are rather strongly correlated in the data to COVID transmission and logically are risky spots. The relative risk reduction of the pfizer vaccine is 95%. If the "Vaccine passport" was not easily faked I see no reason this would not make cases plummet. Even if it WAS easily faked not everybody who didn't get a vaccine would fake such information. Why is this security theater when even 50% effectiveness would lead to a dent in breakouts? The only reason I could imagine this was ineffective would be >90% vaccination rates to begin with or similar but some area are closer to 50% as of this post.
Is it so horrible that the unvaccinated (without some evidence of medical exemption) could not go to bars, work in hospitals, and other high risk activities? COVID is R0=5.7, why should all of society put up with distancing, mask, etc measures to accomodate what is essentially the selfishness of those avoiding the vaccine in large part because they're banking on not dying personally if infected, or other people getting the vax protecting them so they don't need to take the risk of an emergency vaccine, or subscribing to cranks? If people feel spike proteins are too dangerous to risk they shouldn't be going to a bar in the first place which are spike protein heaven.
>I'm also against private businesses overstepping local governmental mandates and asking for vaccination proof,
To me this decentralized form of enforcement is worlds more appealing than the centralized kind. It's practically a market based approach. You can go to Nosey Joe's bar or the antivaxxer spit swapping social house.
I've been against most governmental mandates (except for certain places under its jurisdiction like hospitals and public transit) yet I'm very supportive of a decentralized approach and providing proof of vaccination. Is the problem that the government isn't mandating it or that it's being mandated at all? I presume it's the latter because government mandates scare me FAR more.
I would figure that this screening measure gets more and more pointless the higher vaccination rates are simply on the grounds of it being overkill. For what it's worth most health authorities seem to figure about 70% first dose will take a serious bite out of covid, but I'm not sure what the magic number is.
No, I think that you demonstrate the meaning of the word is quite well-defined.
The logical approach to me given the current system would be vax passport proponents to penalize bars for NOT requiring such passports in the reviews. I think these reviews are fair game but the knife cuts both ways.
Not that I use Yelp since they're extortion racketeers.
You're right though, ultimately this doesn't matter much. Yelp has been garbage for years, so it's not really worth discussion the fun new ways they're garbage.