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Anti-Vaccination Conspiracy Theories Thrive on Amazon (cnn.com)
Amid a growing measles outbreak in the United States, the role of powerful tech companies like YouTube and Facebook in spreading vaccine misinformation is under heavy scrutiny. But there is another massive platform offering spurious anti-vaccination content to people seeking information: Amazon, the world's largest online marketplace.
CNN Business: And, asked about it, an Amazon spokesperson only pointed CNN Business to the company's content guidelines page, which says the following: "As a bookseller, we provide our customers with access to a variety of viewpoints, including books that some customers may find objectionable. That said, we reserve the right not to sell certain content, such as pornography or other inappropriate content." A recent search for "vaccine" on Amazon yielded a search page dominated by anti-vaccination content. Of the 18 books and movies listed on the search page, 15 contained anti-vaccination content. The first listing was a sponsored post -- that is, an ad for which Amazon was paid -- for the book "Vaccines on Trial: Truth and Consequences of Mandatory Shots" by Pierre St. Clair, which Amazon was also offering for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
UPDATE (3/2/2019): Amazon "has apparently started removing anti-vaccine documentaries from its Amazon Prime Video streaming service," CNN reports.
However, "a number of anti-vaccine books were still available for purchase on Amazon.com when CNN Business reviewed search results on Friday afternoon, and some were still being offered for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers."
UPDATE (3/2/2019): Amazon "has apparently started removing anti-vaccine documentaries from its Amazon Prime Video streaming service," CNN reports.
However, "a number of anti-vaccine books were still available for purchase on Amazon.com when CNN Business reviewed search results on Friday afternoon, and some were still being offered for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers."
There's hardly a freedom more important than the right to be wrong. The right to hold, discuss, and publish ideas that more people think are downright stupid and dangerous is the core right in a free society. After all, saying and doing what everyone in society thinks is correct needs little protection.
If people want to separate fools from their money on Amazon, that's their clear right. The nice thing is: if a clear bestseller emerges, education can then be focused on debunking that specific work, and have a very broad reach compared to a million stupid misconceptions across the internet.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
How many people love to write a conspiracy-laden book about evil corporations and doctors, and promise enlightenment by not following that path?
My guess is the latter.
Is that really Amazon's fault that there are more Anti-Vax books than Pro-Vax? My guess is any brick-and-mortar book store would contain the same.
War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery. Welcome to our brave new world where it is 'common sense' to ban everything that doesn't fall in the 'consensus'.
The word "ban" is nowhere in the article.
Your argument seems to be that any discussion whatsoever of what is sold by Amazon can have no purpose other than resulting in a call for banning books. Therefore, even if banning books is not mentioned at all, you will react as if it was a proposal to ban books.
By attempting to shut down discussion of something that you think might lead maybe to somebody expressing an opinion you don't like... you are the example of what you criticize.
When my youngest son was two weeks old he developed whooping cough while on a trip to visit my parents. I remember him going from slight cough to blue lips in about an hour. I will never forget the desperate trip to the local hospital, the ambulance to the slightly larger regional hospital, and the air ambulance trip to the major center. We were lucky, my son is still with us and healthy today. But it was touch and go.
There is some question of how he contracted it, but still the most likely vector is from someone who was unvaccinated. The church I attended at the time was quite conservative and vaccination conspiracy theories were pretty popular then.
If vaccination conspiracy nuts only hurt themselves, I would tend to agree. But there are many diseases that you can't vaccinate for right away. Plus, remember, it's not the conspiracy nut who is the one hurt in any case. It's the conspiracy nut's innocent children. They don't deserve deadly diseases, or the knowledge that they passed on a lethal disease to an infant.
They stopped using Thimerosal in pediatric vaccines in 2000.
Check again. Thiomersal was used in Pandemrix.
Never approved in the U.S..
If you want to avoid mercury exposure, don't eat fish.
Also, I don't eat fish.
Too bad for you. Turns out eating fish is healthy.
https://universityhealthnews.com/daily/nutrition/benefits-of-eating-fish/
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/11-health-benefits-of-fish#section5