By Tanzila Jamal
A Senate hearing recently took place on March 5th regarding anti-vaccination activism and proposed solutions to defer this increasingly harmful movement. Most notably among the speakers was Ethan Lindenburger, the 18-year old teenager famous from Reddit for posting how he had received his vaccinations after discovering his mother had not vaccinated him as a child. In his opening statement he spoke out about the spread of misinformation regarding vaccinations on social media, recalling his conversations with his mother about why she chose not to vaccinate him. The main offender in spreading anti-vaccination propaganda was revealed to be social media posts and groups that promoted the movement. Another issue among the spread of misinformation was the circulation of paranoia about pharmaceutical companies and the government. Many believe that they are trying to “infect” children with vaccinations as a “form of control”. It became clear that the next steps needed were to figure out how to halt the lethal dissemination of misinformation.
One answer came in the form of action from several social media companies including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, among others. These sites have responded to the rising issue by censoring and discouraging anti-vaccination sentiments. Pinterest has prevented people from searching for anti-vaccination posts. Users that search “anti-vax” will receive a message saying “Pins about this topic often violate our community guidelines, so we’re currently unable to show search results.”. While I support this course of action, it is only temporary. Youtube has responded by demonetising anti-vaccination videos and supplying an information panel that links to an article about the dangers of vaccination hesitancy. It is naive to believe that this will defer people from anti-vaccination beliefs. Time and time again, it has been proven that scientific facts are inconsequential in the face of those who truly believe vaccinations are dangerous and a control mechanism by the government. Facebook, meanwhile, has banned antivax advertisements and reduced the ranking of anti vaccination groups in searches. Facebook's attempts are ultimately ineffective and do not support a long term solution to a much greater issue. More effective would be the overall termination of these anti-vaccination groups. As Facebook owns Instagram, they have extended this policy there as well, excluding “anti-vax” from recommendations or hashtags. Even Amazon has pulled anti-vaccination advertisements from their streaming services and halted the sale of anti-vax books.
Evidently, social media companies are finally taking responsibility for the ideas that spread through their services. However, this brings into question the role of the government in regard to privates companies and how much, if any, influence the government can have on these companies. After backlash and pressure from government officials, companies like Amazon are outright halting the propagation of anti-vaccination ideas. While it is not the official duty of the government to interfere in private affairs, in this case it is necessary. It is the duty of the government to protect the public. Anti-vax sentiments pose a serious and immediate threat to society and the public needs to be protected. This protection includes discouraging anti-vaccination sentiments and the promotion of real science -- not Facebook pages full of paranoid and misinformed moms declaring that “vaccines cause autism”.
For many, the fight against anti-vaccination has extended to social media and the internet is a major relief. Social media is an enormous influence and preventing the spread of anti-vax ideals through it will be beneficial to the vulnerable masses these posts target. New mothers and older people have continuously been targeted by this slew of false information and it’s relieving that something is finally being done about it. Anti-vaccination poses a threat to everyone and the prevention of the spread of misinformation will only serve to benefit society. The threat anti-vaccination poses to society is far greater than the impediment of free speech by social media.
If you’re interested in hearing more from Ethan Lindenburger, here’s an AMA he did on Reddit.
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