Amazon Removes Anti-Vaccine Movies After CNN Inquiry (cnn.com)

"Amazon has apparently started removing anti-vaccine documentaries from its Amazon Prime Video streaming service," reports CNN: The move came days after a CNN Business report highlighted the anti-vaccine content available on the site, and hours after Rep. Adam Schiff wrote an open letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, saying he is concerned "that Amazon is surfacing and recommending" anti-vaccination books and movies....

Amazon did not respond to questions about why the films are no longer available on Prime Video.

However, while some anti-vaccine videos are gone from the Prime streaming service, 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... Amazon also had not removed some anti-vaccine books that CNN Business had previously reported on, which users searching the site could mistake for offering neutral information accepted by the public health community.

Comments

What about..

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump going to prison though?

Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking forward to those liberal book burnings. Maybe we can resuming burning people at the stake.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[ClickOnThis]

Looking forward to those liberal book burnings. Maybe we can resuming burning people at the stake.

Yet another person who fails to understand the First Amendment. It protects you and me from the government. It does not protect you and me from each other -- or in this case, Amazon.

As for burning at the stake -- the 17th century called, and they'd like to invite you to a barbecue.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[LynnwoodRooster]

Sure, it's completely legal for Amazon to do so - however, in general we should be wary of restricting any speech or sharing of information - right or wrong. You want to ensure a virulent idea survives? Persecute it so that those who adhere to it have a cause to support.

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

However, Adam Schiff did write a letter to Amazon requesting information. This may be grandstanding, but there is certainly the potential that Congress might try to pass legislation to restrict anti-vaccine content. You may want to reconsider your comment.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[AHuxley]

Freedom of speech.
Freedom of the press.
The freedom to publish.
The freedom to watch a movie and review it.
The freedom to make a movie and have it sold?

After an open letter from .... big g o v.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't you an apologist for a traitor who restricts what and which reporters can report about his administration for fear they turn up evidence or a direct verbatim admission of a crime?

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[ShanghaiBill]

Yet another person who fails to understand the First Amendment.

The poster you replied to didn't mention the 1st Amendment.

Just because corporate thought control is legal, that doesn't mean it is a good idea.

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[AHuxley]

What content will congress like to restrict next AC?
Right to repair? The import of computer parts and how to repair?
Books on the math of DRM and crypto?
Tax information?
Books and movies on the lie detector tests?
Anti war movies and books?
Books by whistleblowers about the history of the mil/security services?
Movie reviews in books that are too political and that make a movie not sell?

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[guruevi]

In the same vein, SS actions and Jewish suppression were completely legal in Nazi Germany too.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[ClickOnThis]

Yet another person who fails to understand the First Amendment.

The poster you replied to didn't mention the 1st Amendment.

Fair point. But (s)he did mention "Freedom! Oh no" in the subject, implying it was an attack on the First Amendment.

Just because corporate thought control is legal, that doesn't mean it is a good idea.

I'm with you there. But I don't think that a company choosing which books to sell or not sell constitutes "thought control."

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another person who fails to understand the First Amendment. It protects you and me from the government. It does not protect you and me from each other -- or in this case, Amazon.

Yeah, that's right! Because Amazon is a private corporation, not some clandestine government front for unconstitutional activities.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[AHuxley]

An open gov letter to help corporate control along?

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[AC-x]

however, in general we should be wary of restricting any speech or sharing of information

Just as we should be wary of forcing people to publish others' speech.

You want to ensure a virulent idea survives? Persecute it so that those who adhere to it have a cause to support.

Apparently not

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up and make me a faggot cake.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[phantomfive]

Yet another person who fails to understand the First Amendment. It protects you and me from the government. It does not protect you and me from each other -- or in this case, Amazon.

Yeah, legal or not, people who don't respect freedom of speech still suck. That's the 79th amendment.

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

No he is saying that medicine can't be 100% trusted. The whole industry in the US at least has given us antibiotic resistant stuff like MRSA through over-prescription of antibiotics and an opiod epidemic through the over prescription of painkillers.

Vaccines are produced in batches and can vary in efficacy across different batches. There are rare, but still existant, cases of vaccines either giving the disease the vaccine protects against to people or causing severe side effects. I am not an anti-vaxxer and, to be perfectly honest, I don't know or have personally met irl anyone who is. That doesn't contradict the points raised though.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[WaffleMonster]

Yet another person who fails to understand the First Amendment.

Who said anything about first amendment?

It does not protect you and me from each other -- or in this case, Amazon.

What is this in response to?

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[ShanghaiBill]

But I don't think that a company choosing which books to sell or not sell constitutes "thought control."

The books were not pulled because they weren't selling well, but because they contained thoughtcrimes.

The books/videos were pulled hours after they received a letter from a congressman, which was an implied threat of government retaliation.

It is easy to justify targeting of anti-vaxxers. But this sets a very dangerous precedent.

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." -- H. L. Mencken

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[DNS-and-BIND]

In a copororatist system, it does not matter who is censoring you. Corporations can buy whatever laws they want. America certainly has such a system. The real question is why are you on Slashdot defending the right of billionaires to suppress us from speaking, even if we're wrong? You work for a social media management company, don't you?

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[shilly]

Oooh, ooh, I've got another idea for how you can get a virulent idea to survive beside persecuting it. Wanna hear?

You can get a virulent idea to survive by promoting it too!

So tell us, clever clogs: how do you get a virulent idea to die out? You can't argue against it, because its adherents see arguments as "persecution" even if you don't mean it that way. You can't choose not to stock books that promote it, even though you're a private company, because apparently that's also persecution. And if you do nothing, its adherents will continue to spread the message. So how *do* you get the idea to die out?

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Luckyo]

Book burning is also completely legal under the First Amendment. You can burn books all you want.

So thank you for sharing that you support book burning.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[WaffleMonster]

So tell us, clever clogs: how do you get a virulent idea to die out? You can't argue against it, because its adherents see arguments as "persecution" even if you don't mean it that way. You can't choose not to stock books that promote it, even though you're a private company, because apparently that's also persecution. And if you do nothing, its adherents will continue to spread the message. So how *do* you get the idea to die out?

Invent something more ridiculous to replace it?

Personally I have little sympathy for those pissed off about all those suspicious of vaccination. There is more blame to be placed than just on the shoulders of crackpots.

There is way too much regulatory capture / corruption / lobbying / scope creep from drug industry spending big to try and make shit mandatory coupled with widespread culture of dismissiveness when it comes to filing of adverse reaction reports.

The government has only itself to blame for failing to act beyond reproach with resulting loss of legitimacy / confidence being entirely predictable consequence.

I mean WTF does anyone expect people to believe in an era where regulatory capture is pervasive? The FDA was bad enough... today we live in crazy land where even TLAs like the motherfucking DEA have been corrupted by industry from the top down.

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

These are people who still believe in the Russian collusion conspiracy, despite zero evidence, or even logical rationale.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[serviscope_minor]

The books were not pulled because they weren't selling well, but because they contained thoughtcrimes.

Oh get over your self. Using hysterical emotional, laden language like "thoughtcrime" just indicates you're not engaging your brain and actually thinking.

Crank movements existed long before the internet and the ability that gives to reach a huge audience with little effort. They still had their free speech then and they still have it now. They can still self-publish pamphlets, speak in the town square promoting their crankery. They can even set up a website and there are even webhosts dedicated to hosting literally anything protected under the first amendment (such as Dreamhost, no affiliation except being a happy customer).

What you are demanding is that people have the right for othes to provide them services whereby they can monetize whatever they say.

That's the most ludicrously over-entitled reading I think I've ever heard of free speech. No, you don't have the right to force others to help you monetize your cranky views.

It is easy to justify targeting of anti-vaxxers. But this sets a very dangerous precedent.

No it doesn't. There has never been a time when private vendors have ever stocked all books regardless of their content. To claim it "sets a precedent" is to ignore all of history.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Hognoxious]

But (s)he did mention "Freedom! Oh no" in the subject, implying it was an attack on the First Amendment.

Right. That clearly follows because the word, - nay, the very concept - didn't exist prior to 1776.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no freedom to have something sold. At least not by someone else.
You have to sell it yourself if you want that. This is your freedom.
FORCING someone else to sell something for you is infringing on their freedom.
If you want someone else to sell your stuff for you, you'll have to come to an agreement with them first.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[shilly]

Invent something more ridiculous to replace it?

This is obviously immoral if the ideas are not only ridiculous but dangerous as well, and there's zero evidence it will look, and good reason to think it wouldn't. So no.

As for the rest of what you say... the focus of such sympathy as you are able to muster should not be with "those suspicious of vaccination". It should be with those harmed by people not vaccinating. That would be babies, old people, the immunocompromised, etc.

You can talk as much bollocks as you like about TLAs being bought etc etc, but I'd bet a large amount of money that if you or a loved one were in an ICU, you'd be perfectly happy to have the adenosine you're prescribed, be intubated as needed, have a central line in place, etc, without feeling the need to mutter darkly about your suspicions about the science all being faked because drug companies and med device companies are prone to evil and corrupt acts.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[shilly]

Should say "work", not "look"

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[astrofurter]

Forced-vax nazis sure do enthusiastically endorse corporate censorship of wrongthink.

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[astrofurter]

Most of the great crimes against humanity in the 20th century were fully lawful. Many of them were indeed mandatory under the law.

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[serviscope_minor]

Da, comrade we do.

You have been a good little slodier, so go and collect your rubles from uncle Vlad.

Proshchay!

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

So if we get Amazon to quit selling all the homo fag books, you wouldnt be upset?

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[spoot]

Not sure where the attribution should go to, maybe Mencken. "Freedom of the press only belongs to those who can afford one." And although it may not exactly apply in this instance, it's always a good idea not to confuse the First Amendment rights with censorship. While Amazon may not be committing a First Amendment offense, it is clearly censorship, for good or evil.

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny. Most of those anti-vaxxer books are "homo fag books".
They appeal to people who feel disenfranchised by the system. To a victim complex where alternative and arguably unhealthy lifestyle choices are oppressed by the man and big wealthy corporations. Which not quite coincidentally is exactly what most (college educated) SJW crap is about.
They appeal to feel happy gay time alternative live natural lifestyles with essential oils and homoeopathic shit. Which again is not quite coincidentally what a lot of fags are about.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because if you don't vaccinate your kid, my kid could die from a preventable disease?

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to ensure a virulent idea survives? Persecute it so that those who adhere to it have a cause to support.

Your mental tendency to identify with the perceived martyrdom of a purported victim is a weakness in your reasoning capacity.

You really need to escape your juvenile thinking.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet you work for one

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

It is easy to justify targeting of anti-vaxxers. But this sets a very dangerous precedent.

No, no, it doesn't. No. Not at all. If you think that bookstores haven't dropped books because of content before now, frequently after the sale of those books was brought to their attention by office holding politicians (which you deem an implied threat, but congressmen and women write letters every year about issues everyone knows full well they won't legislate on, their job is to represent the public, which is done through more methods than legislation), you apparently have missed centuries of history.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[ShanghaiBill]

What you are demanding is that people have the right for othes to provide them services whereby they can monetize whatever they say.

No I am not. What I am demanding is that congressmen stop threatening bookstores, and that people stop voting for them when they do.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

What you fails to understand is that "the government" might not be in charge much longer.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

What I am demanding is that congressmen stop threatening bookstores

No you're not because no congressmen have threatened any bookstores. What you're demanding is that congresspeople stop representing their constituents, which is an entirely different thing.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[ClickOnThis]

Not sure where the attribution should go to, maybe Mencken. "Freedom of the press only belongs to those who can afford one."

Well said. However, today we have the internet. That levels the playing field quite a bit.

And although it may not exactly apply in this instance, it's always a good idea not to confuse the First Amendment rights with censorship. While Amazon may not be committing a First Amendment offense, it is clearly censorship, for good or evil.

If you were to walk into a Christian bookstore, I doubt you would find any books on Satanism. Is that censorship?

And before someone responds with the inevitable gambit about cakes for gay weddings, I find it distasteful when a baker refuses to make one. However, sexual orientation is not a protected class. Not yet, anyway.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[WaffleMonster]

This is obviously immoral if the ideas are not only ridiculous but dangerous as well, and there's zero evidence it will look, and good reason to think it wouldn't. So no.

Your loss. Personally I've found pushing the ridiculous to the max is a good way to get people to discover their own errors in judgment and quite amusing to boot.

As for the rest of what you say... the focus of such sympathy as you are able to muster should not be with "those suspicious of vaccination". It should be with those harmed by people not vaccinating. That would be babies, old people, the immunocompromised, etc.

I have no interest in addressing symptoms. I only care about problems. Emotional reactions to suffering doesn't help anyone suffer less. Only sane rational policy does that.

You can talk as much bollocks as you like about TLAs being bought etc etc,

When bollocks = documented reality Houston we have a problem. Dismissing reality is the very thing anti-vaxxers are derided for and unsurprising here you are trying your hand at the same thing.

but I'd bet a large amount of money that if you or a loved one were in an ICU, you'd be perfectly happy to have the adenosine you're prescribed, be intubated as needed, have a central line in place, etc, without feeling the need to mutter darkly about your suspicions about the science all being faked because drug companies and med device companies are prone to evil and corrupt acts.

What I care about is correcting institutional failures having lead to unnecessary suffering. Loss of legitimacy often translates into human suffering.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

It's weird when you always hear the same old story that shutting them out will only validate and strengthen conspiracy nuts. And that the best course of action is to ridicule them.
Sure. It'll validate them. But for people who believe that absence of evidence is evidence of suppression of that evidence, anything can give them validation.
What these geniuses also seem to forget is that only ridicule and nothing else is what got us where we are today.
Why not try something different? Just because it doesn't have a 100% chance to work?

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[serviscope_minor]

No I am not. What I am demanding is that congressmen stop threatening bookstores, and that people stop voting for them when they do.

No, you're really not. Because it didn't go down anything like what you're saying. What's happening in practice is that as soon as someone uses their constitutionally-granted free speech to criticise, you lose your shit, your brain shuts down and you start squawking mindlessly about censorship.

What actually happened was this:

A representative wrote an open letter to amazon.

OH NO THE SKY IS FALLING USING FREE SPEECH WILL END FREE SPEECH EVERYBODY PANIC!!!

Oh and drop your "bookstore" narrative. Amazon is accepting money to advertise which puts them in a whole different category and is actively recommending these anti-vax books. A congresscritter has an absolute right to question a company that is doing something demonstrably harmful.

And we don't need pro censorship people trying to fear-silence people into not using their free speech simply because you don't like what you believe they said, not that you could be arsed to even read TFA to find out.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Book burning is also completely legal under the First Amendment

So what? You'll still be arrested for starting a bonfire in your backyard without a permit. Such things aren't allowed without approval. So while you can burn books (assuming it's not enough books to trigger the anti-pollution laws), you're not allowed to start the fire.

You have the right to do or have many things, but there are laws preventing you from completing some of the tasks you need to accomplish in order to reach the original goal. So do those original rights really matter? As a dumb example, you're legally allowed to perform colon hydrotherapy on yourself (flush a lot of water through your ass), but it's illegal to buy any of the supplies to do so unless you get a prescription.

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

There are still those who sent the Russian collision despite mounting evidence and the entirely expected result for a self-serving lying fraud to betray everything even his own children.

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

So... You want censorship of government political speech (illegal), in order to prevent censorship of the products docked in a store (inevitable)?

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[shilly]

Your loss. Personally I've found pushing the ridiculous to the max is a good way to get people to discover their own errors in judgment and quite amusing to boot.

What does "your loss" even mean in this context? It's not about my loss or your gain. It's about an effective means to counter virulent ideas and specifically counter their spread. Which your proposed solution of reductio ad absurdum patently is not, even though you think it's worked for you.

I have no interest in addressing symptoms. I only care about problems. Emotional reactions to suffering doesn't help anyone suffer less. Only sane rational policy does that.

Sane rational policy is "pushing the ridiculous to the max", is it? And people dying from exposure to viruses are symptoms and not a problem? Keeping it classy and stupid. Congrats!

When bollocks = documented reality Houston we have a problem. Dismissing reality is the very thing anti-vaxxers are derided for and unsurprising here you are trying your hand at the same thing.

Unsurprisingly, you misunderstood. Never mind. What is bollocks is not the idea that TLAs have been bought. What is bollocks is the idea that because some TLAs have sometimes been bought, there is some logical chain that means Amazon should be obliged to sell crocks of shit written by anti-vaxxers. The implication of your raising the fact that TLAs have sometimes been bought is that we shouldn't trust anything they touch. If we don't trust them on vaccines, why trust them on central lines, on whether adenosine is safe and effective, on infection control safeguards, etc etc?

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[LynnwoodRooster]

That President who spied on and persecuted media left the office in January, 2017. The current President doesn't like some of the press corp (like the previous President as well), but has not banned any news organization, nor spied on them, not prosecuted them.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[LynnwoodRooster]

I love it when facts are trolls... SJWs at work, safe space invaded by reality and thus reality must be damned!

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[mapkinase]

1st Amendment is just a particular implementation of much broader and much more important concept of freedom of speech, stop using it as a bloody reference and shove it up your American ass with your "founding fathers"

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[astrofurter]

You realize that using obscure Russian slang makes you sound like a Russian, right?

Now here I was thinking you were just another pompous, self-satisfied nazi twat... But maaaaaybe you're actually one of Putin's troll army, just _pretending_ to be a nazi twat!!

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[No Longer an AC]

Are you sure Trump hasn't "spied on them"?

How the Justice Department's Seizure of a Reporter's Email Records Subverts the Free Press

And can you explain to me why you think anything Trump does can be excused with a "But Obama"?

Some of us voted against both of them.

It emerged late Thursday that the Justice Department had secretly seized years of email and phone records of a New York Times reporter in connection with a leak investigation. This marks a clear escalation of the Trump administration’s attempts to intimidate journalists and their sources. In doing so, it seems that the Justice Department may have violated its own policies for obtaining reporters’ communications — strict standards that are in place because of the importance the Constitution places on freedom of the press.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Uberbah]

Crank movements existed long before the internet and the ability that gives to reach a huge audience with little effort.

Yeah, but those cranks aren't going to risk killing anyone with their crankery. Flat earthers, lunar conspiracy theorists, anti-fluoride nutjobs, Russiagaters....none of them are going to possibly kill someone as a side effect of engaging in their conspiracy theory. As opposed to anti-vaxxers, who can kill people with measles, or render them deaf or blind.

They can still self-publish pamphlets, speak in the town square promoting their crankery.

Uh huh. And when Amazon refuses to sell you a printer, and has bought all the town squares? They have been getting into real estate. It's too flippant to say "just go somewhere else" if "somewhere else" will give you 3% of the audience you had before, in the age where tech companies have established effective monopolies in their market segments.

Speaking of Amazon, it has contracts with the government worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and Bezos sits on a board at the Pentagon. And Amazon was told about these videos by a high ranking Democratic official, in a chamber that was just taken back by the party. So, yeah, this is a free speech issue. And I say that as someone who has complete contempt for antivaxxers.

What you are demanding is that people have the right for othes to provide them services whereby they can monetize whatever they say.

See above on monopolies. As for antivaxxers, suppressing their speech risks a slippery slope and establishes a bad precedent. So maybe we could tax them. You can smoke cigarettes if you want to, but in most places you will be paying a hefty sin tax that will mitigate some of their costs. So if you don't want to vaccinate your kids, you pay a tax - one that scales with income or assets. You're a single mom in a double-wide? $500 per unvaccinated kid. You're Jenny McCarthy and you want to adopt some kids? $1,000,000 for each one you don't vaccinate.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[No Longer an AC]

It may not make it die out, but I don't care if a small subset of people feel they're being "persecuted".

We certainly have the right of free speech to criticize them and their ideas. We can't give in to ideas just because someone plays the victim. At the same time, let's try to be fair about it so they don't have any credible reason to play the victim.

I don't think not selling certain things makes anyone persecuted. Perhaps the poor authors? No, not even them.

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

>astroturfer

yep, username checks out.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Luckyo]

So you are arguing for book burning. I literally had no other arguments, and your desperate deflections into irrelevant topics of "but can you start a bonfire in your backyard" demonstrate that you understand very well why your stance on book burning is utterly unacceptable by modern standards of liberty.

Re: Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because corporate thought control is legal, that doesn't mean it is a good idea.

But sometimes it does. Case in point, a group spreading lies (yes, anti-vax is a flat out lie, no need to both sides bullshit this) that results in harm to the general population - in this case a measles outbreak.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Which congressmen threatened which bookstores?

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[serviscope_minor]

Uh huh. And when Amazon refuses to sell you a printer,

Then buy it from somewhere else like staples or walmart, or the manufacturer directly.

and has bought all the town squares?

If your elected representatives sell off the town squares, democracy is already dead, and you'd be screwed with or without Amazon.

else" if "somewhere else" will give you 3% of the audience you had before

You don't have a right to an audience. You have a right to speak, and people have a right to listen but you have never, ever had the right to force others to listen or to carry your speech.

Re:Freedom! Oh no

[Agent0013]

Oh get over your self. Using hysterical emotional, laden language like "Crank movements" just indicates you're not engaging your brain and actually thinking.

anti-vaccine is a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly the only way to stop a cult is to remove all members from existence.

Re:anti-vaccine is a cult

[ClickOnThis]

Sadly the only way to stop a cult is to remove all members from existence.

Wow. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

Let's try information and education instead, hm'kay?

Re:anti-vaccine is a cult

[ArchieBunker]

Wow. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

Let's try information and education instead, hm'kay?

Sure, next up I'll try talking some fundamentalist christians out of the existence of god. Surely scientific methods and facts will sway their opinions.

Re: anti-vaccine is a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you specifically say Christians fundamentalists?

Why not Muslim? Or Buddhist? Or Hindu? Or Odin worshippers?

Ill bet you refer to yourself as an atheist. You are not. You are just an anti-Christian bigot.

I am a real dictionary definition atheist. I am completely unbothered by religious people of any faith. More power to them. It is loud Louth hater loser scumbags like you I hate. You give real atheists a bad name. I have to explain now that I am not the bigoted hateful Christian hating kind, just simply not a believer in the divine. You suck.

Re:anti-vaccine is a cult

[ClickOnThis]

Sadly the only way to stop a cult is to remove all members from existence.

Wow. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

Let's try information and education instead, hm'kay?

Sure, next up I'll try talking some fundamentalist christians out of the existence of god. Surely scientific methods and facts will sway their opinions.

Great. Have at it. Rational persuasion is fair game. But at least you won't be trying to "remove all members from existence" as the OP darkly suggested.

And BTW, many christian denominations (and other religions) have reconciled science with belief.

Re: anti-vaccine is a cult

[anon208]

Which education interventions do you suggest? How do you plan on delivering it?

Re: anti-vaccine is a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact your on the right track, from my point of view all religions are cults and should all be disbanded.

They all are used to encourage hate towards others, especially those of a different faith. (Even when their documents say nothing of the sort)

 

Re:anti-vaccine is a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

"Let's try information and education instead, hm'kay?"

we have been trying that for generation, and look where its gotten us, a society that is accepting of others who have destructive and downright dangerous beliefs some of which can that can kill anyone around them.

We tried it, they where to dumb to learn, it failed, Enough is enough.

Re:anti-vaccine is a cult

[gravewax]

While I am not as extreme as the OP, It is obvious at this point information and education is not working.

Re: anti-vaccine is a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to assume something and make a giant pretentious post out of your assumption, which then turns out to be fucking wrong, you fucking retard. LMAO

You sound like prime r/iamverysmart material.

Re:anti-vaccine is a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

And BTW, many christian denominations (and other religions) have reconciled science with belief.

Which basically means they selectively accept the most blatantly obvious stuff, because it is impossible to dispute, but continue to ignore such facts and scientific theories that either require hard work to understand, or are contrary to their beliefs.

Re: anti-vaccine is a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. They just realize the fact that most, if not all, of humanity is seriously flawed or lost up its own backside. So they invent an incorruptable imaginary being that humanity can't destroy or lose until it possesses the ability to evolve away from the need to destroy each other.

When people truly stop hating each other, there will be no need for religion or any god/s. But people insist on hating other people so....

Yeah, it's become a feedback loop.

Atheists are just as guilty in this. A good, reasoning mind, would stick to empirical proof that something exists or not and never the opposite that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Or to put it bluntly, non believing agnosticism is better than atheistic believing. Arrogance makes the latter into a religion as evidenced by denial of that fact being fundamental to its existence. Denial of contradictory evidence is a hallmark of religious belief....

Re: anti-vaccine is a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because people are talking over each other and not being observant nor considering of the fact that not everyone can fully understand.

If I sat you down and started forcing you to learn advanced theoretical mathematics, you'd either take to it right away or tell me to take a hike. If it was important for you to learn it (which it actually is, but that's another topic all itself) and you told me to feck off, it wouldn't just be your fault alone for that. I would need to bridge the gap in your lack of intelligence/ability/desire to learn, with whatever is needed to get you to want to learn. I wouldn't be able to force feed you the information to get you to retain it, no matter how much I might want to try it.

Re: anti-vaccine is a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe in the Divine, but not in religion. I am definitely anti-religion and the
genocide and harm that it has caused to so many cultures over the millennial(s).

A "real" atheist would feel the same, IMHO, and want to educate people rather
than "be unbothered by religious people of any faith." Because their actions and
the voting power they wield are harming you and your family and your ability to
truly practice your atheist belief. Basically, they harm your liberty and freedom.

Education is the best way to fix this problem, not ignoring it. Because that's what
they want you to do - ignore their efforts to harm you by enforcing their view on you.

Just like removing anti-vaccine movies is not educating people for their need and
is not addressing the possible real concerns people may have about vaccines
that should be address through sound education.

CAP === 'coheres'

Re: anti-vaccine is a cult

[Uberbah]

Why do you specifically say Christians fundamentalists?

Specifically, Christofascists are much more common in the US than any of the people you try and whattabout.

Why not Muslim?

You do know that's all the same Old Testament bullshit, yes? Fundamentalist jews, too.

You are just an anti-Christian bigot.

You're a whiney, butthurt Christianist.

Re:anti-vaccine is a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

So is global warming.
So is Islam.
So is Christianity.

Should we keep going?

Re:anti-vaccine is a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

As mentioned by others, this won't work. Anti-vaxxers resist information and education, at least that which doesn't suit their narrative. I don't know about removing all of them from existence, but I do think we should vaccinate them by force.

Lead them all to fake "anti-vax rallies" and then spray the crowds with aerosolized vaccines instead of tear gas. Once they start getting wise and bringing gas masks, that's when we load some vaccines into tranquilizer darts and snipe them from rooftops, starting with their movement leaders.

Or just threaten to take their kids away for being bad parents. There's plenty of parents who have had their kids taken away for much lesser offenses, so why the hell do the anti-vaxxers get to keep their kids when parents who smoke weed and live in open relationships have to live in fear of having their families separated? The former is scientifically proven child neglect, the latter is more a matter of lifestyle, yet child services have their priorities completely ass-backwards.

Re:anti-vaccine is a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

Feel free to explain in a scientific manner that there is no god.
 
I'll be waiting.

Re: anti-vaccine is a cult

[ArchieBunker]

What a shit attempt at trolling. 1/10.

Re:anti-vaccine is a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

So you want Amazon to stop selling the Bible and other religious texts, too?

Re: anti-vaccine is a cult

[goose-incarnated]

What a shit attempt at trolling. 1/10.

I'm atheist and I agree with GP - the majority of the worlds muslims are further to the right than the KKK. Why call out the less-extreme forms of religion, but not the extreme ones?

Re:anti-vaccine is a cult

[No Longer an AC]

Wouldn't convincing them through "information and education" have the end result of "removing all members from existence"?

Or did the AC mean something more like a "final solution"?

Re:anti-vaccine is a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not up to us to prove there is no god, the burden is on you to prove there is a god. I don't try to prove there is no unicorns or zombies or spaghetti monsters I simply side with evidence and on the evidence available there is nothing to say any of these exist.

Re: anti-vaccine is a cult

[Mike Van Pelt]

What a shit attempt at trolling. 1/10.

I'm atheist and I agree with GP - the majority of the worlds muslims are further to the right than the KKK. Why call out the less-extreme forms of religion, but not the extreme ones?

Because the less-extreme ones will do nothing but call you out on it and complain a bit, but the extreme ones will kill you. Dead. Blown to bits, head cut off, burned alive, whatever occurs to them at the moment they get their hands on you.

So they pat themselves on the back for being "free-thinkers" while in perfect safety attacking the mostly harmless not so extreme, while denouncing as "phobic" anyone who says anything bad about the really extreme ones.

Disturbing trend

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like the idea of a bookstore being pressured into removing books on a given subject.
I'm not convinced the proper response to books containing dangerous misinformation is removal.

Re:Disturbing trend

[AC-x]

Why shouldn't a bookstore be able to choose what they stock? Why should a bookstore be forced to carry a product they don't want to sell?

Re:Disturbing trend

[serviscope_minor]

Why shouldn't a bookstore be able to choose what they stock? Why should a bookstore be forced to carry a product they don't want to sell?

Because if you don't have the right to sell your free speech works for money then you don't have any kind of free speech at all. /s

Re:Disturbing trend

[MMC Monster]

Because Amazon Marketplace has become the dominant player in the book selling universe. Not a monopoly, but certainly the largest single player.

You don't have to be a monopoly to be regulated as such by the government. Microsoft wasn't a monopoly when the government forced them to decouple IE from Windows.

Similarly, the inability to being able to sell your book on Amazon Marketplace (not Amazon) would curtail any book seller.

Listen to the Planet Money podcast exactly about this sort of thing: https://www.npr.org/sections/m...

Re:Disturbing trend

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll sell you Mein Kampf without blinking an eye.

Re:Disturbing trend

[Dan East]

Why shouldn't a bookstore be able to choose what they stock? Why should a bookstore be forced to carry a product they don't want to sell?

Conversely, why shouldn't a bookstore be able to choose what they stock? Why should a bookstore be forced not to carry a product they want to sell?

Imagine a small country town in the south. There's a small bookstore, and it sells books that are pro-abortion. The local newspaper calls them out on this. The mayor strolls by and tells the owner he's disappointed in them. Pastors tell their congregations that they shouldn't support businesses that promote abortion. The store stops carrying the books. Everyone is "happy".

Do you not see the problem here? This is a two way street. Just because Amazon is huge doesn't mean they are immune. Major news outlets and the dissemination of information over the internet easily exert as much pressure on the likes of Amazon and Walmart as my example above at a smaller scale.

Re:Disturbing trend

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you not see the problem here?

You don't. What's really going to happen in that small town is they will stock anti-abortion literature full of lies and misrepresentations. The girls will be castigated and denounced for considering their health and discussing their sexuality.

Eventually this will escalate into violent assaults on abortion providers and rampant STD spread and unwanted pregnancies. Because you were entirely wrong about what would happen. You didn't think. You just wriggled your hands and pretended that everything stopped at one decision.

Re:Disturbing trend

[squiggleslash]

That's an argument for a different time. Nobody's arguing that Amazon should be forced not to stock something.

Your comment comparing this to a small bookstore in the south is dubious at best and then handwaving the obvious problem by writing " Just because Amazon is huge doesn't mean they are immune". First, Amazon is actually more protected from such situations, there's no risk of violence for example against them and they wouldn't lose most of their sales as a result of a church run boycott. Secondly, there's a world of difference between criticizing a company for spreading misinformation, and boycotting a company to the point of likely bankruptcy in support of preventing women from getting information about potentially live saving medical care.

Either way, nobody has forced Amazon to do this. People have raised the issue, Amazon has made the entirely reasonable position of agreeing it doesn't want to spread lies and misinformation that'll put people's health at risk. Your segue is misleadingly off-topic.

Re:Disturbing trend

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Amazon Marketplace has become the dominant player in the book selling universe. Not a monopoly, but certainly the largest single player.

That's a ridiculous stretch. For content, the first amendment specifically trumps any kind of legislation you'd care to quote. The government can't control what books Amazon sells or doesn't sell.

Now, if you want to talk breakup, prohibiting bundling, Amazon Prime, other anti-competitive business practices, that's fine. But it's a massive stretch, and actually completely illegal to say the government can control content based on anti-trust.

Re:Disturbing trend

[Anonymous Coward]

...preventing women from getting information about potential life saving medical care.

The brain-washing is strong in this one...

Re:Disturbing trend

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the free market sort it out. If there's enough demand somebody will make an "Amazon but with antivax videos" company.

Re:Disturbing trend

[goose-incarnated]

Why shouldn't a bookstore be able to choose what they stock? Why should a bookstore be forced to carry a product they don't want to sell?

Damn right. In fact, they should simply pile all of the subversive material in the town square and burn them. Book burning is the mark of an enlightened culture, is it not?

Just what we need.....

[pollarda]

While I don't agree with the anti-vaccine crowd, the last thing we need is for Amazon / Google / Facebook to become the arbiters as to what we think, see, and hear. Having everyone think in lockstep is far more dangerous than the anti-vaccine movement imho.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello. I'm from the Ministry of Truth and I see that you seem to be suffering from wrong-think. Please, step into this van and we'll take you to our very special re-education facility. They will take very good care of you.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

All this will do is fan the flames of conspiracy. It will not convince anyone to change his mind.

Re:Just what we need.....

[AC-x]

FYI being forced to publish something is just as dangerous to free speech as being forced to not publish something.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm. No. Did you learn that at Berkeley?

Re:Just what we need.....

[PopeRatzo]

Having everyone think in lockstep is far more dangerous than the anti-vaccine movement imho.

Tell that to somebody with smallpox or polio or cervical cancer from HPV. Or the family of someone who died in one of the recent measles outbreaks.

Too bad there isn't a vaccination against people who think that accepting study after replicated study - thousands of them- that show vaccines are effective and safe is somehow, "thinking in lockstep".

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

What lockstep? There is still a whole world of filth on countless platforms. This is about amazon themselves saying no to anti-vaxers.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this does change my mind. If vaccines are so damned safe and wonderful, why are they so careful to make sure nobody publishes anything anti-vax? Perhaps there is something seriously wrong that they are hiding, eh?

Re:Just what we need.....

[PopeRatzo]

Uhm. No. Did you learn that at Berkeley?

Um, Berkeley was literally the place the free speech movement started, you stupid sonofabitch.

And yes, forcing someone to publish something is as bad as being forced not to publish something. We're not talking about prior restraint here. This was a letter from an elected representative to a CEO showing concern that a product could be knowingly hurting people. There's no law, no regulation, no compulsion. Jeff Bezos got the letter and said, "OK, good point. Fuck anti-vaxxers. Let them go on Infowars and spread their bullshit. I don't have to carry them in my store."

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Next thing he'll be saying "Hate speech is not free speech" or some other such nonsense.

Re:Just what we need.....

[gravewax]

While I don't agree with the anti-vaccine crowd, the last thing we need is for Amazon / Google / Facebook to become the arbiters as to what we think, see, and hear. Having everyone think in lockstep is far more dangerous than the anti-vaccine movement imho.

Amazon/Google/Facebook have been doing that for years already. This isn't the first or even 101 thing they have censored, nor will it be the last.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad there isn't a vaccination against people who think that accepting study after replicated study - thousands of them- that show vaccines are effective and safe is somehow, "thinking in lockstep".

If this is so then there's no need to bury the inferior counterarguments. Doing so creates the very kind of 'conspiracy' the anti-vaxxer sorts are looking for.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom of speech does not guarantee you a platform to spruik your batshit ideas, it simply means you won't be prosecuted by the government for them.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but the problem is that you think you know what's right.

I remember growing up thinking that frying with butter was "bad" and that frying in corn oil was "good". Now we know the opposite is true. We know omega-6 causes inflammation, and that low smoke points are associated with cancer, etc.

The "knowledge" that corn oil was superior was responsible for millions of deaths. (Yes, *millions* .. although many doctors even to this day don't know the latest science).

What if we had legislated in favor of silencing anyone saying the opposite? The problem is that today's pool of knowledge is only 50% right, and we don't know which 50% is which.

So passing laws which question even what has been "proven" is a very dangerous game.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

lmao yeah and the earth is flat too, what are they hiding behind the ice wall omg

you fucking mong

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off with your retarded bullshit. I bet you'd like for smoking ads to come back on TV as well?

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Berkeley, birthplace of the free speech movement, and also where hundreds of black-clad students and teachers in masks literally burned down half of their campus to stop a gay man, and later a jew, from giving 45 minute lectures.

Leftist are fucking hilarious. The first to scream about how settled science is, and also the first to insist a man with a mutilated dick is magically a real woman.

Re:Just what we need.....

[DNS-and-BIND]

Having corporations control what we can say and hear is more dangerous, yes. All sorts of vile things can be done in the name of science. Once, intelligence was thought to be heritable, for instance. This was proven false and turned out largely to be due to economic factors and childhood nutrition. We mustn't allow science to be abused in this way.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

Freedom of human expression is not a legal concept.

It is a moral and ethical one.

The Constitution enumerates and enshrines your rights, and compels the government to defend them, but neither the document nor the government grant them or create them. They are yours regardless.

Not that a sniveling fucking moron like you deserves it, however. You should be hanging from a lamppost, right before your screaming children and raped wife are shot in the back of the head in front of you.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Gravis Zero]

the last thing we need is for Amazon / Google / Facebook to become the arbiters as to what we think, see, and hear.

That's funny because I rarely use amazon and don't use Google or Facebook. Somehow they have failed to control what I think see and hear.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe there's a sneaky limey or two posting, so best to be on your toes. They have equal rights but they also have a queen who has more equal rights than everyone else.

They didn't elect Trump nor Obama nor did the even sneakier Canadians. And their version of the right to speak freely stops at calling for the overthrow of the royal family. Also at saying aluminum, herbs, sweaters, baseball, and the last letter of the alphabet correctly.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Berkeley was also the place where free speech died. Please try to stay current.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be amazing if we had an educated populous.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing called Hate speech, only speech you hate.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

How about giving people the freedom to make up their own minds. If they choose to not vaccinate, and their kids die of measles, so be it. Darwin kills off the poor decision makers. It is reprehensible that there are so many petty dictators SJW types running around trying to prevent people from making bad decisions. Let Darwin work.

People should be free to not wear a seatbelts, and not vaccinate their offspring. To deny this freedom allows more and more of the latter types to reproduce.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Joe Camel had smooth character.

But the Nazi leftists are right. We must ban these things to keep the fatherland safe and secure.. or the motherland or whatever. Heil Hitlary!

Re:Just what we need.....

[shilly]

Amazon is a private company. Every day, it chooses what it will and won't sell -- it's terms of service explicitly say it reserves the right to reject content for a very wide range of reasons including simply that it finds something "objectionable". Are you saying that's wrong? Should it be obliged to carry items it doesn't want to sell, just to make you happy? Why should it act against its own perception of its commercial interests just to satisfy your bizarre desire to treat it as some kind of national public library of record?

Re:Just what we need.....

[shilly]

Corporations don't have power over what you can say or hear. Give it a try: open your mouth and say something vile and you will find the words coming out of your mouth without Google or Amazon or anyone else preventing you.

Corporations aren't obliged to buy and re-sell your particular brand of idiocy, however.

Re:Just what we need.....

[shilly]

I genuinely cannot tell if you are being stupid or ironic with your spelling of the final word in your sentence. What is it Reacher likes to say? "Hope for the best, plan for the worst".

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

How about giving people the freedom to make up their own minds. If they choose to not vaccinate, and their kids die of measles, so be it. Darwin kills off the poor decision makers. It is reprehensible that there are so many petty dictators SJW types running around trying to prevent people from making bad decisions. Let Darwin work.

People should be free to not wear a seatbelts, and not vaccinate their offspring. To deny this freedom allows more and more of the latter types to reproduce.

I'm not so sure about such theories.

I mean if the premise were sound there wouldn't be any fags left in the world yet somehow the gene pool keeps churning 'em out.

Re:Just what we need.....

[h33t l4x0r]

I guess since they're not allowed to sell vaccines, the invisible hand demands that they push anti-vaxx literature.

Welcome to extreme capitalism and thanks for playing!

Re:Just what we need.....

[91degrees]

I don't think anyone wants anyone to be forced to publish.

I think it would be a positive thing for Amazon to remain a neutral provider of information and not make judgements about moral worth.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Hognoxious]

You beat me to it.

I think it was Orwell who warned against using a word in writing that you've overheard the grown-ups saying.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

False equivalency. Nobody is being forced to publish anything. Amazon willingly entered into distribution contracts to publish these works. No they are being coerced by Adam Schiff to censor. Letâ(TM)s face it, if Schiff really thought anti-vaxxers were yelling fire in a theater, heâ(TM)d prosecute them according to the law. But that would have a bunch of pesky discovery and the last thing pharma wants is for their pseudoscience to be scrutinized in a court of law. You all know most vaccine safety studies donâ(TM)t even use a saline placebo, right? They use a different vaccine as the placebo or a vaccine adjuvant, and then say âoesimilar resultsâ. The cases where they do use saline, they combine the saline study results with the adjuvant to conceal the fact that for serious injuries like syncope, MS, encephalopathy, etc the saline column is all zero. Because saline is one of the safest medical interventions known to man.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

When is dinner usually served at this Gulag?

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

"People" from the EU or UK lecturing us on freedom of speech is like Bill Cosby lecturing us on consent.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem isn't so much that their defective offspring die from measles, it's that they take out your newborn baby before its old enough to get vaccinated.
If it were just karma coming home to roost, it wouldn't be as big a deal. (It's still kids that can't make their own choices *yet* having a vulnerable period)

Re:Just what we need.....

[Type44Q]

Berkeley was literally the place the free speech movement started

Sure it was.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

> Berkeley was literally the place the free speech movement started

Wurttemburg called. Something about you being a sheisskopf.

Re:Just what we need.....

[thegarbz]

And as a private enterprise he's not obligated to host nazi propaganda either. In fact there's very few things he is obligated to do.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Megol]

Nice strawman you have there... Would be a shame if something happened to it.

Re:Just what we need.....

[DrXym]

Google ranks results based upon its own proprietary, secret algorithms so this argument is stupid. They're already arbiters. Why can't one of the things they rank results on be the scientific, evidentiary quality of the thing somebody is searching for?

If somebody googles for vaccines, then all the antivax brain damage should be about 10 pages down.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Hognoxious]

True, but other people have votes -and theirs count just as much as yours. And votes lead to laws, and laws do affect you.

Snapnumpty only have to convince one person and they've cancelled you out. Two, and they're ahead.

Re:Just what we need.....

[AmiMoJo]

Cue the "but Amazon is the government now! Amazon Prime Video is the new town square, the marketplace of ideas!" crowd.

Re: Just what we need.....

[astrofurter]

Corporate Progressive nazis sure do love stifling dissent.

Re: Just what we need.....

[astrofurter]

"as a private enterprise he's not obligated to host nazi propaganda"

You're suggesting they will stop hosting forced-vax nazi propaganda?

Re: Just what we need.....

[astrofurter]

And cue the Corporate Progressive nazis apologizing for corporate censorship.

Re:Just what we need.....

[DNS-and-BIND]

Corporations don't have power over what you can say or hear.

If your video isn't on Youtube, does it really exist? Our public square today is dominated by corporations. It's foolish to say otherwise. We have moved on from the era of soap boxes on the street. Imagine in the old days if Ma Bell had the ability to listen in to every phone call and was ordered by management to disconnect calls that opposed the war in Vietnam.

Re:Just what we need.....

[DNS-and-BIND]

UC Berkeley was where the free speech era ended, in the Berkeley Anti-Speech Riots of 2017. The whole world saw it happen. So did the grandparent poster. So did you.

Berkeley's stand on free speech today?

"If your perceived definition of violence is limited to the confines of physical contact, that's probably because you've never had to experience the psychological trauma that comes along with being a Black person in America," declares Shelby Mayes, who serves as Membership Development Director for the BSU, in an op-ed for The Daily Californian. "I didn't need to be physically harmed to feel violated by my school [on September 14]."

Source: The Daily Cal, "Campus stance on free speech facilitates trauma against Black students"

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

But nonetheless real events

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless what you think, wait until the table is turned. Dont expect any sympathy.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

And as a private enterprise he's not obligated to host nazi propaganda either. In fact there's very few things he is obligated to do.

And yet, they have no problem selling you Mein Kampf.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

We can say antthing we like, it is purely about spreading the message right?

Make sure the message gets noqhere beyond the mouth right?

Nazis made sure some books didnt get out either. Set the precident for all Socialist to follow.

Slippery slope but the door is open to all dissemination.

Check libraries for anti vax books...the place of gov funded free thought..

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Kids smids. Dude we are talking lately of terminating them AFTER theyre born. Dont use babies as moral high ground if you support abortion.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Applehu Akbar]

It will be like Vegas: so long as there's a buffet with crab legs, people won't care what is being done to them.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Applehu Akbar]

And yet it does:
https://smile.amazon.com/Mein-...

Re:Just what we need.....

[Applehu Akbar]

If your video isn't on Youtube, does it really exist?

It could be worse. What if your video were on NBC?

Re:Just what we need.....

[Applehu Akbar]

People should be free to not wear a seatbelts, and not vaccinate their offspring. To deny this freedom allows more and more of the latter types to reproduce.

If you don't use your seatbelt, you endanger yourself. If you and enough of your hippie-mom friends don't vaccinate, you endanger those around you.

Re:Just what we need.....

[F.Ultra]

Are you honestly wondering how something that is factual correct can be damaged by false information and slander? Have you really thought this through?

Re:Just what we need.....

[F.Ultra]

It's not about changing any ones mind but trying to prevent the conspiracy theories from spreading.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

So before Youtube nothing ever existed?

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I suppose that a deranged left-wing lunatic who got arrested last week, after beating up conservative activist, at Berzerkely, was also a figment of everyone's imagination?

Re: Just what we need.....

[c6gunner]

What kind of assholr would give people saline instead of a vaccine?

Oh, right, a homeopath.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Mein Kampf is an important work from a sociological standpoint. Just because Amazon sells it doesn't mean that they condone it's message.

But you knew that, you just thought you were being cute. Instead you're just an asshole.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

It's interesting that you seem to regard a theory as a sort of infectious agent-- something which floats around in the ether and cause previously healthy brains to become afflicted.

You can try to restrict "wrong" ideas all you want. Alternately (a better idea) you can try to combat "wrong" ideas through persuasion and reasoned argument. At the end of the day, no matter what you do, there are going to be some individuals who are going to believe in things that are simply wrong or crazy. 1% (more or less) of every human population has schizophrenia. 2-3% (more or less) of every human population has mental retardation (or developmental delay, to use the kinder and more modern term). An additional, indeterminate percentage will simply be allergic to logical argument for some other reason. All of these sub-groups are always going to be with us, ain't nothing you can do. Get used to it. Accept it. Find reasonable ways of dealing with it.

Re: Just what we need.....

[c6gunner]

Yes but the problem is that you think you know what's right.

I remember growing up thinking that frying with butter was "bad" and that frying in corn oil was "good". Now we know the opposite is true.

Irony.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy fucking shit. I didn't think Slashdot tranny Libtards could POSSIBLY still be this fucking stupid in 2019, but here we are. "It's okay if giant corporations want to censor everything you see and hear because legally there isn't a law that says they can't!" DURR IT MUST BE A GREAT IDEA THEN! If you fucking dipshits weren't so violently in love with fascism, you'd look in a mirror and realize what awful scum of humanity you are.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever Libtards don't have any substance to their argument, like the brainless empty NPCs they are, out comes the hit n' run comment.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, physical harm isn't the only way to violate someone. Your ability to cite a rather routine statement and go into hysteria over it shows that.

Of course, in your case, it is because of your own delusional psychology, but that is a separate problem.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words:
President.
Trump.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.. because the Bill of Rights of the US constitution didnt exist until a berkley lead amendment.. duh.. didnt you know that?

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Forcing someone to get a vaccine so they donâ(TM)t get hundreds of other people sick is is Nazi, but forcing someone to carry a fatally deformed child to term for 9 months is the Lords Work?

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti vaxers do not endanger the unvaccinated babies. Unvacinated babies that have inferior immune systems die off. This is Darwin in action. The universe does not owe it to babies to survive disease free. Quite the opposite. Evolution demands some babies die off due to disease. If an unvacinated kid spreads a disease to a baby that is too young to have been vacinated, this is not a wicked occurace. It is a natural part of evolution and has been gowing on for millions of years.

The window between birth and vacinations is slim. It is not really lives of babies that SJWs care about. It really just a dick measuring contest. One side measures the size of their penis by how many people they can indoctrinate into their virtuous way of thinking.

Virus lives matter. Give people the freedom to make bad choices.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Ol Olsoc]

While I don't agree with the anti-vaccine crowd, the last thing we need is for Amazon / Google / Facebook to become the arbiters as to what we think, see, and hear. Having everyone think in lockstep is far more dangerous than the anti-vaccine movement imho.

The usefulness of vaccines and the understanding of that fact is hardly a fascist demand for all only being allowed to think in one way.

Where do we draw the lines in the war on truth? Should we allow blatantly false information on economic competitors? Should say Tesla be allowed to post false statistics on Ford, claiming they are killing people?

The stats are in, the data is real. Vaccines prevent illness and death in children. This is not political opinion, this is fact.

In the end, Amazon is almost certainly protecting their ass. One of these days, some parent is going to lose a child to an easily preventable childhood disease. In the time honored tradition of money salving all wounds, Amazon will be sued as promoting anti-vaxxing.

Could be an anti-vaxxer or normal parent even.

And as the latest fraudster Andrew Wakefield knew in his conspiracy to make millions off of sympathy - it is really easy to invoke sympathy in a jury when there is a child involved.

Finally, Amazon is not the government. If they don't want video about unicorns, they are well within their rights to scrub their service of unicorns.

If you wish to have lot's of anti-vaxx info out there so that we aren't brainwashed sheep, you could always rent some server space and put up Anti-Vaxx videos. Other possibilities are flat earth, moon landing conspiracies, chemtrails, and birth certificates vids. Funny how free thinking has become belief against facts.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Ol Olsoc]

It will be like Vegas: so long as there's a buffet with crab legs, people won't care what is being done to them.

WHAT? No shrimp?

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Berkeley doesn't recognize peoples right to free speech.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Ol Olsoc]

It's not about changing any ones mind but trying to prevent the conspiracy theories from spreading.

It is more about Amazon protecting their butts against the coming lawsuits.

One of these Anti-Vaxxer parents is going to lose a child, have an epiphany about how they were mislead, and sue the platforms where they got their information. Probably within the next 5 years.

It will be complicated, between sympathy for the poor child, and widespread desire for the parent to be jailed

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

You fucking prick.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Ol Olsoc]

Jeff Bezos got the letter and said, "OK, good point. Fuck anti-vaxxers. Let them go on Infowars and spread their bullshit. I don't have to carry them in my store."

A thousand times this.

I don't quite get how our Slashdot Fringer crowd seems to think that they can force people to carry things they don't want to carry. The same people would be wailing and moaning if someone infringed upon their freedom to say and do what they want.

If its such a bellwether of free thinking, perhaps our fringers can rent server space and disseminate this forbidden knowledge. The Slashifreedoms or something like that.

Re:Just what we need.....

[bill_mcgonigle]

Tell that to somebody with smallpox or polio or cervical cancer from HPV. Or the family of someone who died in one of the recent measles outbreaks.

Sign me up. Do you have a family that is advocating the use of violence to foece people to use a certain modern technology? I'll call them out on it.

Re:Just what we need.....

[bill_mcgonigle]

yeah, yeah, back when the Constitutional Convention was going on in Philly and California was a Spanish colony, Berkeley is where it all began.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it does not endanger those around you. Having measles endangers those who haven't been vaccinated, but not those who have been vaccinated, so your public health threat is a strawman based on irrational fears.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Gravis Zero]

True, but other people have votes -and theirs count just as much as yours. And votes lead to laws, and laws do affect you.

Are they going to pass laws to force me to use Amazon/Google/Facebook? Nope. Could they pass laws to restrict content on the internet? Yeah, that have never gone well.

Your argument lacks teeth but it's great for scaring idiots.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

100%. Is this nazi Germany? What on earth is going on here???

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

You truly are a fucking idiot. Marsh v. Alabama concerned free speech on a private sidewalk in a corporate town where Jehovahs Witnesses were banned. The company lost and rightfully so. Yet you would cheerlead corporate censorship because it discriminates against "bad" speech.

Re:Just what we need.....

[PopeRatzo]

Berkeley was literally the place the free speech movement started

Sure it was.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to Steven Crowder

Re:Just what we need.....

[PopeRatzo]

Sign me up. Do you have a family that is advocating the use of violence to foece people to use a certain modern technology? I'll call them out on it.

The first vaccine was developed in 1796. Does that qualify as "modern technology" to you?

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

What about a pro vaxxer losing a child? And trying to sue? Oh wait, thatâ(TM)s happened, a thousand times over, wiht the us government paying out over 4 million dollars in damages

https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/hrsa/vaccine-compensation/data/monthly-stats-aug-2018.pdf

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

You are up to 4%, Trump got 49% of the vote...

Re: Just what we need.....

[www.JewBurnr.com (]

Vaccinate the JEWISH cattle!

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Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I don't care either way. I will never pick up a cigarette.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Hognoxious]

Yeah, I suppose they couldn't possibly pass laws about anything else other than tech or that could affect you. *eyeroll*

Re:Just what we need.....

[CaptainDork]

I agree.

I was going to attack the "free speech," angle by pointing out that the US government is not guilty of that.

There's no search warrant, no probable cause, no court date, no fines, and Bezos is not slated for sentencing, bail, or a trip to the big house.

Nor is it censorship. The anti-vaxx crowd can still publish what they want to in other places and get their word out to the masses.

I can't buy porn at Walmart.

Re:Just what we need.....

[CaptainDork]

You don't get freedom of speech.

Berkley is driving the truck. They get to say who rides shotgun.

That's freedom. Anyone who disagrees can get their own goddam truck.

Re: Just what we need.....

[CaptainDork]

The Constitution enumerates and enshrines your rights ...

Read it again. The Constitution does not grant rights. It forbids the government infringing or abridging them.

Re:Just what we need.....

[CaptainDork]

This applies to climate change, as well.

Fuck a bunch of science, let's jump into the hand basket and ride the highway to hell.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Having everyone think in lockstep is far more dangerous than the anti-vaccine movement imho.

Tell that to somebody with smallpox or polio or cervical cancer

Tell that to everyone no longer dying from smoking, whose group think used to say was a healthy thing to do.

Everyone thinking in lockstep is indeed far more dangerous than people questioning everything. In fact, the whole idea of science is to question everything. You're so far anti-vax you've become anti-science. Who would have thought evening lighting would increase your chances of cancer? It does!* and we know that because people challenge common beliefs. The damages of group think far, far, far outweigh some idiots who get a tiny percent of their local population killed. You are free to move away from them. In fact, the more you suppress them the harder it is to identify them thus the harder to avoid them.

*Due to lessening your deeper stages of sleep thus lessening the repair work you body does while sleeping.

Re:Just what we need.....

[CaptainDork]

NBC gets its videos from YouTube. It's cheap ... citizen reporters replace journalists. As long as the content is entertaining, the fucking source is irrelevant.

Re:Just what we need.....

[CaptainDork]

You ALWAYS use Amazon, Google, Facebook, even if you are not a member.

"When you visit a site or app that uses our services, we receive information even if you're logged out or don't have a Facebook account."

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

It is an infectious agent. Read some Dawkins.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Ol Olsoc]

What about a pro vaxxer losing a child? And trying to sue? Oh wait, thatâ(TM)s happened, a thousand times over, wiht the us government paying out over 4 million dollars in damages

https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/hrsa/vaccine-compensation/data/monthly-stats-aug-2018.pdf

Shit happens.

A lot more shit happened before vaccines.

But hey - why get vaccinated? No one gets those diseases anymore, amirite?

Re:Just what we need.....

[joe_frisch]

I agree that the constitution only protects against government prosecution, but I think that there is a argument for laws that *do* provide other protections. I dno't want to see a world where a small number of organizations can effectively prevent unpopular ideas from being communicated to the public. Similarly I don't want a situation where corporations become afraid of protests, and so refuse to transmit unpopular ideas. It sounds tempting when the ideas being blocked are in opposition to one's own ideology, but many ideas that are currently popular were at one point extremely unpopular.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Gravis Zero]

All the laws they have tried to pass to restrict speech (thus far) have been struck down, so color me skeptical.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Gravis Zero]

There is a difference between them tracking me and me using their services. They need me but I don't need them.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't seem to know what the laws are in the UK. We do have the right to say what we want, but we're also held accountable for it.

We have the right to say we should overthrow the monarchy. We will be held accountable for trying to do so with force, or incite others to use force to do so. The punishment is the same regardless of if it's the royal family or some random person though. We break no laws by demanding they step down, or campaigning to stop giving them money.

While we have slander and libel laws, the truth is an absolute defence and we do have the right to speak an opinion. For an example, it's perfectly legal for me to say "I think Prince Charles is an absolute dick and it'll be terrible for him to become King" because that's opinion. I can say "he's an irresponsible meddler who's attempting to interfere with politics in this country" because that's been proven true. I can't lie about him though, that's the only thing that would be libel.

As for your flippant remarks about pronunciation, remember that we're writing in English, the language of England and the English people. You may have more speakers of your local dialect, but it's an offshoot of the parent language, not the authority on it. If you think number of speakers are important, then India has you beat, and you should speak their dialect instead.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Shaitan]

I'm normally first in line to support this concept. Even to a fault, supporting the rights of groups that are the antithesis of my personal beliefs but the anti-vax movement is the heart of a growing public health crisis.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not forcing someone to publish anything. Amazon had already made the choice to publish, and they were pressured by activist "journalists" to unpublish. They've done this constantly with all types of books from all types of viewpoints.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Aighearach]

While I don't agree with the anti-vaccine crowd, the last thing we need is for Amazon / Google / Facebook to become the arbiters as to what we think, see, and hear.

This is the theoretically dumbest possible comment; the mythical "perfect stupidity" that is normally only used in modeling.

What the fuck did you think "publisher" meant in the first place?!?!?!??

Re:Just what we need.....

[Aighearach]

Shorter you:

Misrepresentation + red herring = Ur rong!

You can't model a complex system only by sniffing your farts. If you fart and say, "That doesn't smell infectious to me" that tells you nothing at all about the system and if it works in a similar way to an infectious agent; or not.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Aighearach]

You've got some Santorum between your teeth.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

You read it again. You're literally repeating what he said while acting like you're disagreeing.

Re:Just what we need.....

[PopeRatzo]

Amazon had already made the choice to publish, and they were pressured by activist "journalists" to unpublish.

Who were these "journalists" you're speaking of?

Re:Just what we need.....

[CaptainDork]

But they got yer ass whether you like it or not.

Re:Just what we need.....

[shilly]

If your video isn't on Youtube, does it really exist?

Yes. It really exists. There are other platforms. You can host your own website. But that won't get you as big a potential audience as YouTube? Do me a fucking favour. There's a shit ton of content on YouTube with views in the dozens or fewer. The platform is no guarantee you'll be heard. You have to have something to say that interests other people, without being sufficiently obnoxious to get yourself chucked off.

YouTube is not the public square, any more than Fox or Carnegie Hall. You're foolish to think otherwise. It's a privately owned space and the owner sets the rules. It provides access to larger audiences, just like Fox or Carnegie Hall, but you're not guaranteed a slot, just like Fox or Carnegie Hall.

Re: Just what we need.....

[shilly]

I tell you what, bright boy: if you're so sure that Marsh v Alabama is relevant, why don't you try suing Amazon for impinging on free speech with its T&Cs for posting content, and see how far you get? I could do with a laugh.

Re: Just what we need.....

[CaptainDork]

Read and learn before you post

Doesn’t the Bill of Rights grant us rights?

Nope, it only sought to enumerate and protect those that were considered important enough to list.

It does not contain phrases like, "The People shall have the right to free speech." It contains language like, "Congress shall make no law abridging free speech" or "..the right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

If the People did not already have the right to free speech, how could Congress abridge it?

.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's incredible watching you be so breathtakingly and hilariously wrong.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/us/berkeley-assault-campus-free-speech.html

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that they have their hand out begging for public funds, while the other hand is forcefully finger-fucking the Statue of Liberty against her will.

Re:Just what we need.....

[tjonnyc999]

Unless and until judges roundly throw out insane lawsuits against libraries, streaming content providers, and other all-access/equal-access purveyors of information, we will have these idiotic lawsuits along the lines of "my kid went to the library and found a book on explosives and blew his leg off, so I blame the library, not my own shitty parenting skills".

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you retarded?

The post you're arguing with literally said exactly what you said, verbatim.

Re: Just what we need.....

[PopeRatzo]

It's incredible watching you be so breathtakingly and hilariously wrong.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...

A guy punched another guy. Neither guy had any connection to Berkeley. You're gonna have to do better than that.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Gravis Zero]

You seemed to have missed the point entirely. The objection was that "the last thing we need is for Amazon / Google / Facebook to become the arbiters as to what we think, see, and hear" but I choose to not use their services and thus they are incapable for being the arbiters or anything for me.

It's like you are arguing about that the paint on my car is going to peel when my house burns down in response to me pointing out my house is not located on a flood plane so I have little worries about flooding. Even if you were right, it's still totally unrelated.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Ol Olsoc]

Unless and until judges roundly throw out insane lawsuits against libraries, streaming content providers, and other all-access/equal-access purveyors of information, we will have these idiotic lawsuits along the lines of "my kid went to the library and found a book on explosives and blew his leg off, so I blame the library, not my own shitty parenting skills".

I've long thought that there needs to be a GTFO court that screens cases, and if they are stupid, issue a writ of "Get The Fuck Out".

The serial suer, the people who think that knowledge is bad like your example, and the plain frivolous would be candidates for a writ of GTFO.

Re: Just what we need.....

[mapkinase]

That is not even real threat. Remember, first they came for others

Re:Just what we need.....

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

You know, I've been commenting on Slashdot for about 17 years. Usually if someone takes the time to respond to one of my comments, it's worth my time to read it. Of course every now and then, I've received responses to my comments that I thought were disagreeable, or logically flawed, or just wrong for some reason.

But I think this is the first time I've encountered a response that is just flat-out dumb. Hats off to you, sir.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

The free speech movement started in 1776, you no good liberal trash Kike cocksucker.

Re:Just what we need.....

[No Longer an AC]

True, but other people have votes -and theirs count just as much as yours. And votes lead to laws, and laws do affect you.

It would be so much nicer if only people who agreed with me voted, but regardless of any tech companies other people who are "wrong" (at least IMO) are going to be influenced by others I disagree with.

Before the internet most people were influenced by the major newspaper in their town or if they were lucky they got to choose between a couple of them. If they didn't report it, maybe you could hear about it from somewhere else. Or maybe you'd never hear about it. (The biggest difference between the 2 papers where I grew up is one delivered in the morning and the other delivered in the afternoon/evening).

If their editorials put a certain slant on things (like endorsing candidates) people were influenced by that. They picked and chose which letters to the editor to publish and they even edited them.

I just don't see how you can force someone to publish without violating their free speech.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh?

Re: Just what we need.....

[PopeRatzo]

The free speech movement started in 1776, you no good liberal trash Kike cocksucker.

How is it that so many of you don't know the history of the Free Speech movement in America? It's a very specific thing and was actually something that both liberals and conservatives were involved in. Not the Trumpservatives of today, but actual, by-god conservatives when such people still existed.

Maybe you should start by googling "Mario Savio and the Free Speech movement".

Also, lay off the antisemitism and homophobia, AC. When you get older, you'll feel bad about having been such an asshole.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

If vaccines were safe, why does the law prevent vaccine companies from being sued, even if they are negligent?

If one of the vax companies screws up, and puts some harmful in the vaccine, you canâ(TM)t sue them.

I donâ(TM)t care how you think about vaccines, that should scare the shit out of you. Big pharmaceutical companies running around with zero-liability is not a good thing, and given that they are one of the few industries which enjoys such blanket protection, it would be perfectly reasonable to question the safety of their product.

Remember, the same people that say vaccines are safe, said that Global Warming would have submerge Manhattan by now. Clearly âscienceâ(TM) and âfactsâ(TM) are what their experts tell them they are.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

There are lots of conspiracy theories, but very, very few pushes to have them banned. This is about big pharmaceutical profits.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

If you refuse to hire gay people, the government should step in and force you to hire them. If you refuse to hire conservative people, businesses are private and have every right to hire who ever they want.

So-called progressive logic in 2019. The hypocrisy has reached the point of psychopathy

Re:Just what we need.....

[thegarbz]

And yet he's not obligated to do so. Can I offer you a link: https://www.dictionary.com/bro...

Re:Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF, where did anyone advocate the use of violence?

Re:Just what we need.....

[fropenn]

The authors of these books / movies are still free to publish them and sell them through other means. The concerning thing for Amazon / Facebook / Google is their reputation. They want to be known as a reliable source for quality books, news, information....pushing content that goes against this image, whether it be pseudo-science, fake news, or Russian trolling, deeply damages their brands and should be of concern to them.

I agree that we don't want corporations deciding what content is available - but in this instance they are not as these materials, however offensive, can be made available through many other means.

Re:Just what we need.....

[fropenn]

This is an argument against monopolies in media. Too much power consolidated in too few places (public or private) is extremely dangerous.

Re:Just what we need.....

[CaptainDork]

You are missing a point.

When you load up a page that has those little widgets for Sharing -- the icons all in a row --- you are actually visiting those sites whether you are a member or not.

So my statement stands.

Re: Just what we need.....

[CaptainDork]

I quite literally am not surprised that the reference links I post say exactly what I said, verbatim.

I am surprised that you are.

Your "retarded," remark is so high school. Why didn't you call me, "gay," or "unpatriotic," or a "libertard?"

In any case, you didn't get the memo, but every one of those goddam buttons are broken.

Re: Just what we need.....

[CaptainDork]

You DO know that neither participant was a student at Berkley, right?

Re:Just what we need.....

[Gravis Zero]

Oh yeah? It's not even cloudy today and it rained last night!

Re: Just what we need.....

[Anonymous Coward]

LMAO you fucking hero, I'd like to see you drag your pathetic fat ass out of your basement to try anything. I'm guessing you'd sooner hang yourself ROFL.

Re: Just what we need.....

[F.Ultra]

Because when the false "vaccines causes autism" craze started in the 1980:ies the large amount of lawsuits in the US caused several large manufacturers planning to leave the US: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/...

So the US government initiated the "National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program" instead where the manufacturers put money into a large fund that makes payouts to everyone claiming to have been injured by a vaccine.

And for your second claim, no the pharmacologists that tests wheather vaccines are safe or not are not he climatologists that make claims about Global Warning. And Science does not work that way anyway, there never existed any scientific evidence that Manhattan would be submerged by now. Whoever said that to you lied their pants off.

Re:Just what we need.....

[F.Ultra]

I don't regard theories as a sort of infectious agent. Perhaps you are not aware of the common English saying of "spreading ideas"?

Finding reasonable ways of dealing with it is for one having this shit being removed from Amazon so fewer people are getting exposed to plain misinformation like these so called documentaries. Combating these ideas through persuasion and reasoned arguments have been shown time and time again to not work, the people who have fallen for these conspiracy theories only get more hardcore the more you talk with them.

Re: Just what we need.....

[F.Ultra]

This have nothing to do with profits, most other conspiracies does not have the fatal outcome that the antivaxxer movement have and are not as dangerous to society. 911 truthers, flat-earthers, moon hoaxers and people who believe in ghosts might be spewing crazy shit but they are not a danger to any one.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Aighearach]

You know, I've been commenting on Slashdot for about 17 years. Usually if someone takes the time to respond to one of my comments, it's worth my time to read it. Of course every now and then, I've received responses to my comments that I thought were disagreeable, or logically flawed, or just wrong for some reason.

But I think this is the first time I've encountered a response that is just flat-out dumb. Hats off to you, sir.

And yet, "Misrepresentation + red herring" still equals "Ur rong!"

Maybe my response was "dumb" because it doesn't require a smart response to see how stupid an argument consisting of 100% misrepresentation is. You even found some dog-whistle words like "ether," but why attempt a smart response that pulls in some Feynman quotes about the similarity between the concept of an "ether" and his theory of quantum electrodynamics? If you were going to understand a smart response, your comment would have been "flamebait" instead of just being "horse shit." But I don't think you even realize that you were being a such a maroon, so why try that hard?

Re:Just what we need.....

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

...Yes, I agree with you that "persuasion and reasoned arguments" will not work, because we're talking about a group of people who can't think rationally. My point is it is *equally* useless to try to prevent this group of people from hearing of the idea in the first place. Even if you were able to somehow succeed in that goal, these folks would just run across another, equally destructive idea and start believing in that instead. The idea itself is not what is dangerous. The thought process of the people who believe in the idea is what is dangerous.

Re:Just what we need.....

[CaptainDork]

Well, I'd say, "Your momma wears combat boots", but these days, that's a compliment.

And I join you in thanking her for their service.

Re:Just what we need.....

[F.Ultra]

I can agree with all of that, however my concern is when "normal" people start to see these documentaries and falsely believe that they are informal and factual and thus makes the wrong decision. Or in other words, I want to keep this idea as fringe and not risk it getting even close to mainstream. The anti GMO- and anti gluten-crowd have already shown that such a risk is quite real.

Re: Just what we need.....

[Agent0013]

And for your second claim, no the pharmacologists that tests wheather vaccines are safe or not are not he climatologists that make claims about Global Warning.

No, instead we have a pharmacologist that does not even have an understanding of how the vaccine works or what might happen. We have flu vaccines that increase your risk of getting other flu's from other strains. We have vaccine manufacturer's that have been lying about the effectiveness for decades, telling us that the Mumps vaccine is very effective, when in was actually in the 30% range. We have everybody telling us that you must get every vaccine or your life is in danger. Even for things that turn out to be as bad as getting a cold. Or give vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases to newborns. Or vaccines that are just as effective if given after you get infected, rather than before. But. . . your life is in danger. You will die. Sorry, if you can't talk reasonably and with information rather than threats and fear, then I don't believe you.

Re:Just what we need.....

[Agent0013]

Why did you pick those vaccines? You must be trying to lie to people. Most vaccines given to children are not for life threatening diseases, so choosing one of the few that are life threatening means you are trying to manipulate people with half-truths and mis-information. Try Rotovirus, like a cold. Try chicken pox, where they now say it is soo deadly, but wasn't deadly when I was growing up. Or even Tetanus, which you can get after getting infected with Tetanus. So it is just as effective if given after infection, but we want to force it on everybody, for what reason again? Try all the other things they given to young children that aren't the Polio, Measles, Mumps, etc.

Re:Just what we need.....

[PopeRatzo]

Most vaccines given to children are not for life threatening diseases, so choosing one of the few that are life threatening means you are trying to manipulate people with half-truths and mis-information.

Measles, mumps, and chicken pox can be life threatening. Tetanus can be life threatening.

You accuse me of "half-truths and misinformation", but you don't point out either of those from my post.

No offense, but you sound like a drooling moron.

Re: Just what we need.....

[F.Ultra]

Sorry but all of that is just anti-vaxxer crap. There does not exist a single controlled peer-reviewed study that indicates that the Mumps vaccine is anything but 90+% effective. E.g we have this one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Recently, numerous large-scale mumps outbreaks have occurred in vaccinated populations. Clinical isolates sequenced from these outbreaks have invariably been of genotypes distinct from those of vaccine viruses, raising concern that certain mumps virus strains may escape vaccine-induced immunity. To investigate this concern, sera obtained from children 6 weeks after receipt of measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine were tested for the ability to neutralize a carefully selected group of genetically diverse mumps virus strains. Although the geometric mean neutralizing antibody titer of the sera was lower against some virus strains than others, all viruses were readily neutralized, arguing against immune escape.

The HPV vaccines are not given to newborns, the lowest age to get it are 9 years of age. And it's 100% vital to give it before the girl becomes sexually active

The flu vaccine story is also fake, or rather there where a single study that once showed a potential link but then further studies where done (this is how science works, you cannot draw conclusions from a single study), that showed that there where no link: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/...

There was one study (published in 2012) that suggested that influenza vaccination might make people more susceptible to other respiratory infections. After that study was published, many experts looked into this issue further and conducted additional studies to see if the findings could be replicated. No other studies have found this effect. For example, this article [99 KB, 5 pages] in Clinical Infectious Diseases (published in 2013). It’s not clear why this finding was detected in the one study, but the preponderance of evidence suggests that this is not a common or regular occurrence and that influenza vaccination does not, in fact, make people more susceptible to other respiratory infections.

Not going to work

[alvinrod]

This type of thing never works, it just makes the people who already believe in this hunker down because now they believe it's an even bigger conspiracy. If you want to get people to stop believing in this, just make a pro-vaccine movie. Only you don't fill in full of scientists, reason and logic. Go film some of the anti-vaxxers whose children got sick with perfectly preventable diseases. Make sure to really capture the suffering of those poor children and the misery of the dumb-fuck parents. Go to the corners of the earth where polio still exists to show them the horrors of that. I think that will get their attention.

Re: Not going to work

[anon208]

You know that might actually work. Educational outreach really is over rated for some health issues.

Re:Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok but how do you make the anti-vaxxers watch it?

Re: Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

But. Is it even slightly possible for vaccines to cause autism? Why or why not? Please cite sources

Re: Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

No.
If you want to claim that vaccines cause Autism? That's fine.

However the burden of proof is on YOU. The person making the claim.

Be sure to cite reputable sources.

Re: Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. There are crazy people you cannot convince, and there are dumb people you can save from themselves. Dumb outnumbers crazy by orders of magnitude. Dumb is the reason you have to say don't try this at home before doing something stupid on film, and it's why you make money doing that. There are a lot of people on this planet, and a shocking number of them just need to hear good advice once in a while to survive.

Re:Not going to work

[Gravis Zero]

This type of thing never works, it just makes the people who already believe in this hunker down because now they believe it's an even bigger conspiracy.

You are absolutely correct. However, the real issue here is not the people that already believe this bullshit but the people that may be inclined to believe bullshit by a spreader of said bullshit.

If you want to get people to stop believing in this, just make a pro-vaccine movie. Only you don't fill in full of scientists, reason and logic. Go film some of the anti-vaxxers whose children got sick with perfectly preventable diseases. Make sure to really capture the suffering of those poor children and the misery of the dumb-fuck parents. Go to the corners of the earth where polio still exists to show them the horrors of that. I think that will get their attention.

A good start but I think we should go one further and show how much money is made by "big pharma" from each kid that gets sick from these diseases and then claim they founded the anti-vax movement. ;)

Re: Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

assumption that average joe can participate scientific discussion in meaningful way and assuming "scientific etique" in discussion is to say least... bit silly...
citing sources also is irrelevant as scientific knowledge is supposedly available to all so its "common knowledge/common sense" to be informed about

Re: Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

in scientific discussion or "research" citing sources is relevant... and in reality most of shit is paywalled nowadays so theres that... scientific community has been making an effort to become priestlyclass of modern day but... nutjobs go on their magical beliefs on their own :D

Re:Not going to work

[umafuckit]

This type of thing never works, it just makes the people who already believe in this hunker down because now they believe it's an even bigger conspiracy. If you want to get people to stop believing in this, just make a pro-vaccine movie. Only you don't fill in full of scientists, reason and logic. Go film some of the anti-vaxxers whose children got sick with perfectly preventable diseases. Make sure to really capture the suffering of those poor children and the misery of the dumb-fuck parents. Go to the corners of the earth where polio still exists to show them the horrors of that. I think that will get their attention.

It probably won't get their attention: they are blind to reason. They will just think the film is propaganda and either not watch it or do so but use twisted logic to disregard it. People believe the Earth is flat, so believing vaccines are bad for you is a far easier delusion to maintain. The only thing that might change their minds is if their kids die or are debilitated by the diseases they are failing to vaccinate them against. Their current belief system has little of any obvious repercussions on themselves, so it's easy to continue the self deception.

Re: Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Opening disclaimer: vaxx good. get vaxx.

That said, the burden of proof should be on the vaccine makers , as they are pushing a drug. They need to test and prove it's safe (as per regulations). Or would you rather live in a world where drugs get sold out and it falls upon the consumer to prove "Flintstones Multivits, now with Mercury!" made them sick?

Re:Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

While it is hard to persuade intelligent people, it is impossible with dumb people -- Somebody, I don't remember.

Re:Not going to work

[thegarbz]

it just makes the people who already believe in this hunker down because now they believe it's an even bigger conspiracy.

I've never met an anti-vaxxer who wasn't already as hunkered down as humanly possible. Once you get to this stage you have given up on all sense of logic and have firmly planted yourself in the realm of highly extreme anti-establishment and anti-science.

Re:Not going to work

[thegarbz]

I think that will get their attention.

The lord works in mysterious ways. No seriously I know of an anti-vaxxer who had one of her children die, and she's still 100% anti-vax. When the news about her broke in the local newspaper she also complained that she doesn't understand why everyone thinks she's a horrible person for doing something "she believes in".

These people are in a different world. Their brains don't tick right.

Re:Not going to work

[DrXym]

it just makes the people who already believe

It's not the people you already you need to worry about. It's the ones who don't believe but who are receptive to this kind of crap. It doesn't even have to turn them into true believers to cause harm. It just has to sow doubt / fear / distrust so they don't get shots and put their children and others at risk of serious harm or death

Amazon and social media sites don't have to stop hosting antivax (though that would be nice), but there is no reason either that they should give it due prominence. If someone searches for vaccine information, then the science, evidence based information should appear before any antivax stuff. Bury the antivax results where they belong. There is no reason either for Amazon, or social media services to actively promote the antivax through suggestions, keywords, targeted ads etc.

If major websites actively did that then eventually this brain damage would be contained. There would always be true believers but it would not be a mainstream belief. So yes it could work, providing the likes of Amazon grew a pair and actually did something.

Re:Not going to work

[AmiMoJo]

Then why is it only now becoming a big problem? This kind of material has existed for decades but was hard to find and access. Yet suddenly the movement is taking off again. What is your explanation?

The reality is that it's become a big monkey maker for some people, who have figured out how to push it. Where as previously no publisher or movie theatre would have given then a platform, Amazon and YouTube decided they wanted to be the new platforms but that any kind of moderation probably wasn't necessary.

Re:Not going to work

[Hognoxious]

Go film some of the anti-vaxxers whose children got sick with perfectly preventable diseases. Make sure to really capture the suffering of those poor children and the misery of the dumb-fuck parents.

They could equally well interpret it as being God's will, that he wanted some new angels or was testing their faith or something.

Like that dude who applied for a lot of jobs and was told not to look back but he did and was assaulted by a pillock.

Re:Not going to work

[TB]

This type of thing never works, it just makes the people who already believe in this hunker down because now they believe it's an even bigger conspiracy. If you want to get people to stop believing in this, just make a pro-vaccine movie. Only you don't fill in full of scientists, reason and logic. Go film some of the anti-vaxxers whose children got sick with perfectly preventable diseases. Make sure to really capture the suffering of those poor children and the misery of the dumb-fuck parents. Go to the corners of the earth where polio still exists to show them the horrors of that. I think that will get their attention.

Its not about stopping people who believe in this, its about stopping their beliefs spreading to others.... you know, like this.... thing.... on the tip of my tongue. Starts with v.

Re: Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

No one actually believes the Earth is flat. But many people do believe you are a pompous middlebrow twat.

Re:Not going to work

[Hope Thelps]

The lord works in mysterious ways. No seriously I know of an anti-vaxxer who had one of her children die, and she's still 100% anti-vax. When the news about her broke in the local newspaper she also complained that she doesn't understand why everyone thinks she's a horrible person for doing something "she believes in".

These people are in a different world. Their brains don't tick right.

That's not that weird, It's just sunk cost fallacy, which is illogical but normal human nature. Someone's invested so much into an idea that, in their mind, it has to be justified.

It's part of what keeps victims paying in advance fee fraud. It's part of what can keep otherwise competent people following a doomed course on a failing project.

You can't have much more invested in an idea than to have lost a child to i t. It's not surprising that someone can't face accepting that they've done so unnecessarily.

Re:Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

This censorship end around, government asks a private company to censor information, is just going to fuel their debate. The government is actually suppressing them.

Re:Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

The Ludivico Technique was invented for a reason. Strap 'em to a chair, hold their eyelids open in a head brace and shoot 'em full of psychotropics.

THEY CAN'T NOT WATCH.

After that, every time they want to avoid vaccinating their children, just fire up some Beethoven. Problem solved.

Re:Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Allowing the videos on Amazon gives them credibility.

Re:Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

A big part of the problem is that they've established that when conspiracy believers are shown hard evidence that disproves their conspiracy, they actually become more certain of the conspiracy and will even point to the contrary evidence as "proof" that there is some force of evil working against the truth.

I think there are a number of factors at play here.

First you've got insincere grifters using this to make a buck and of course they're never going to accept anything that puts them out of business.

Then you've got parents whose children did suffer some kind of harm where they are trying to find a scapegoat that makes them certain that it was something beyond their control so that they don't have to feel guilty about what happened to their children. Some of these people don't even want to accept the very real likelihood that autism is a purely genetic thing because then they feel guilty about their faulty genes.

Then you've got the cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face bloody-minded people that aren't going to be told what to do by the government how to raise their kids no matter how good the orders may be in the first place. In addition to their general predilections, they also see vaccinations as the thin end of the wedge. If they accept that maybe the government and scientists know what they're talking about with respect to vaccination, then the next step may be that they've got good points when it comes to things like spanking, guns in the house, smoking around your children, conversion therapy, religious rights to refuse blood transfusions and other treatments that some religions object to, etc, etc.

Re:Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah you've hit it. The woman with the dead child is the very one that is NEVER going to admit she's wrong because then she'd be force to confront the fact that her beliefs killed her child.

Re:Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

The folly of this is worse than what's been described. First, removing anti-vax books is arbitrary and capricious--it's done to avoid political pressure and bad press, not to save children--so what's next?? What categories of information are to be banned after this? What are the rules for knowledge that's too dangerous for anyone to know about? How about JFK assassination conspiracy theories? Fluoridation conspiracy theories? Illuminati conspiracy theories? Flat earth books? Just because you remove one topic that's in the news a lot (which is all that anyone cares about here), doesn't mean that there aren't more wrong-headed ideas out there--and how are you going to police them all? And how does Amazon know the contents of all the books they sell? Do they evaluate them all or do they just read the headlines? Are pro-vax books with conspiracy minded titles getting pulled? Are the books being delisted because reviewers are flagging them? Does that mean that any book can be delisted? You are just creating more problems than you can possibly solve by doing this--and it was stupid to begin with because the anti-vax crowd is very small anyway. The maximum epidemic was around 70 kids in one state, which is smaller than the number of kids killed and injured in car accidents during the same time period. It's less than the number of kids shot by accident. You can buy guns through Amazon, so who's kidding who here?

Re:Not going to work

[alvinrod]

There have always been plenty of cranks. If it seems like there are more of them now, it's only because the internet makes it easy for them to gather in a single place. Movies were previously expensive to make and distribute, but the democratizing effects of technology mean that any idiot with a phone and an internet connection can produce and distribute video content.

Don't mistake people calling attention to something for an increase in that thing, especially when no one was really looking at it before. It's like all of the recent news about child sex rings and grooming gangs that have come out in the UK over the last few years. It was clearly all going on for a long time, and not something that suddenly just cropped up.

Re:Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti-vaxers believe themselves to be critical thinkers. Of course, so do the pro-vaxers.

It is hard to achieve objectivity when everyone is claiming that their position is the most objective.

Re:Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone searches for vaccine information, then the science, evidence based information should appear before any antivax stuff.

Women have penises, change my mind.

The problem with "science, evidence based information" is that phrase is nothing more than buzzwords at present.

Re:Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

no but censorship and fascism does work. If vaccination works why does not work in China where all people are chattel and being forced to vaccinate?

Re:Not going to work

[fafalone]

Well the problem is that a woman like her is convinced that the vaccine is *more* dangerous and of dubious efficacy, not that the disease it prevents is harmless. And if that belief was in fact correct, a tragedy from the lesser statistical likelihood is awful, but doesn't mean they made the incorrect decision. Some people die because they or a rescuer can't get a seatbelt off in time after a car accident, from fire, drowning, etc. An exceptionally rare but non-zero event. Should a parent who lost a child that way believe they made the wrong decision by requiring that their child wear their seatbelt? Obviously not, since it's a few orders of magnitude more likely the decision would have saved instead of killed in a wreck.
Not that I think these morons are capable of that level of logic... just sayin

Re: Not going to work

[umafuckit]

Go to the flat earth society forum and engage with them in honest discussion as this pompous twat did. You'll be surprised what they believe.

Re:Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the people that get pointed at this crap?

stfu

Re:Not going to work

[DrXym]

Anti-vaxxers aren't thinking critically. So no.

Re:Not going to work

[RespekMyAthorati]

The only thing that might change their minds is if their kids die or are debilitated

No, they will just blame it on "big pharma".

Re:Not going to work

[Agent0013]

That, plus vaccines are used for non-medical purposes. We have the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, done by fake vaccine pushers. We also have the old cases of injecting syphilis or other dangerous diseases into certain groups of people just to see what happens. We have a past where trusting the medical professionals is not the wisest of actions.

Re:Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why is it only now becoming a big problem?

Because the powers that be decided to call it a big problem.

Anti-vaxxers have been around for as long as vaccines have, and we had outbreaks related to vaccine hesitancy before.

It's a problem now because some people at the top decided they want us to focus on it, so they classify it as a big problem.

Kinda like how Trump calls whatever he wants to be addressed (and done his way) some YUGE problem. Eg. "we have a big problem at our borders. We need that wall now!"

This kind of material has existed for decades but was hard to find and access. Yet suddenly the movement is taking off again.

Correlation does not imply causation.

What is your explanation?

I don't know, but neither do you.

If you want guesses to the same (low) quality as blaming availability of anti-vax materials, here's a few:

-how about globalizaion? People are moving around more, so sooner or a later an anti-vaxxer kid will catch something while on vacation then it back home
-or maybe it's immigration? maybe the anti-vaxxer was from another country, and when they moved in they bring both their vulnerable kids and anti-vaxxer ideas
-blame Trump/Republicans? It's the usual go-to answer these days. Whether he's just telling them what they want to hear or he actually believes it, Trump did court a few anti-vaxxers to support him, and some states are more lax in letting parents refuse vaccines
-blame religion? Another easy answer. This one might actually have some merit, because hey it's religion. Religion's been around for so long you can probably find more evidence to back this theory.

The reality is that it's become a big monkey maker for some people

That's... Trumpian logic. "yeah some people would totally abuse our immigration system, and some people. Build that wall! Walls work! etc"

Vaccines: So Safe Questioning Them Is Prohibited

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the most compelling argument for the anti-vaxxers I've ever heard, and I've been listening to their crap for years. There's nothing like heavy-handed censorship to make anyone wonder, what truth exactly are they trying to hide?

Censorship begins

[AHuxley]

What topics are next?
Movies about faith? Faith groups and cults can help with a long list of movies and books they want less recommended.
Any books and movies that are too sinful?
Movies about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests?
German history and culture?
Do movies about free Taiwan get that surfacing and recommending to movies on Communist China?
Do we still get to find 1984?
Will movies on Catalonia get surfacing and recommending to movies about Spain?
No protest movies for France?

Re:Censorship begins

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't like any of those things you fucking retard. This is like banning cigarette ads. Antivaxxers are like smokers. Selfish pieces of shit with no regard for human life besides their own.

Re:Censorship begins

[sg_oneill]

These conspiracy theories destroy lives.

An old friend of mine who had always been a bit gullible , when his father was sick from Melanoma, convinced his father to stop the chemo and radiotherapy and instead start on "miracle minerals", aka drinking bleach. The poor old guy died in incredible agony , and its not clear it was the cancer that got him in the end, as he died of liver failure, a common outcome of drinking bleach.

Last thing I heard he had nearly hospitalized his wife in a beating beause she had their todler vaccinated.

These beliefs can destroy peoples lifes. And we can pontificate all we want about these hypothetical scenarios , but the material circumstances in front of our eyes are people being convinced of dangerously stupid ideas leading to horrific outcomes.

Do yourself a favor and do a google image search on Black Salve injuries, then come back and tell me if you think civil society should not intervene

Re:Censorship begins

[F.Ultra]

I know that the threat of violence makes me automatically loose the argument but as the father of a autistic son, if I where ever to share say an elevator with one of the MMS (Miracle Mineral Solution) peddlers then only one of us would be leaving that elevator. Those people are beyond horrible.

Re:Censorship begins

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of all the things that didnt ever happen, that one is the worst!

I sure hope you tweeted about that! You're really good at this fantasy outrage game!

Multiple problems with this

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Censoring anti-vaccine content only fuels conspiracy theories. This may drive the content off of Amazon, but it won't stop the spread of misinformation.

2) I'm concerned that legitimate "anti-vaccine" content might be removed along with the misinformation. Some people are allergic to certain vaccines. Other health conditions may prevent some people from safely receiving vaccines. And vaccines do have side effects, though autism most certainly isn't one of them. I certainly don't trust automated systems to distinguish between misinformation and medically accurate discussion about things like allergic reactions to vaccines and other side effects.

Re:Multiple problems with this

[F.Ultra]

There exists exactly 0% legitimate anti-vaccine content in these movies and/or books. The information that there are people that are allergic to certain vaccines or that there exists health conditions that may prevent some people from safely receiving vaccines will be given to you by your real doctor when you talk to him/her about vaccinating your child. That information is not hidden.

Actually I do think that hindering the spread of these "documentaries" will have an affect since the anti-vaxxers are fortunately still such a small group that need platforms such as Amazon and Youtube in order to spread their message. It's when their shit is displayed on Amazon and Youtube that some people start to believe that their claims are believable.

Re:Vaccines: So Safe Questioning Them Is Prohibite

[ClickOnThis]

This is the most compelling argument for the anti-vaxxers I've ever heard, and I've been listening to their crap for years. There's nothing like heavy-handed censorship to make anyone wonder, what truth exactly are they trying to hide?

The truth that sending your un-vaxxed kid to the same school as mine puts everyone at risk. Herd immunity is effective, but it breaks down if too many individuals are not innoculated. Educate yourself on the debunked claim that vaccinations cause autism, and join the rest of us who want to protect ourselves as well as everyone else.

ATTENTION HUXLEY MORON

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS ON OTHER PEOPLE'S WEBSITES, MORON. Learn this fact, accept it, and pull your head from your Libertarian moron's asshole.

Re:ATTENTION HUXLEY MORON

[AHuxley]

AC the gov is sending out open letters.

Re:ATTENTION HUXLEY MORON

[gravewax]

and? everyone, including members of the government have a right to send out such letters.

Re:ATTENTION HUXLEY MORON

[shilly]

Adam Schiff isn't a member of the government. Christ, don't you know even basic civics?

Re:ATTENTION HUXLEY MORON

[Anonymous Coward]

They sell Mein Kampf, your argument is invalid.

Re:ATTENTION HUXLEY MORON

[Anonymous Coward]

Adam Schiff isn't a member of the government. Christ, don't you know even basic civics?

The legislature is part of the government and Adam Schiff is a member of the legislature; ergo, Adam Schiff is a member of the government.

ATTENTION MORON PSEUDO-LIBERTARIAN HUXSTER

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY RIGHTS ON ANYONE ELSE'S WEBSITE OTHER THAN YOUR OWN, YOU THICK COUNTRY MORON.

THE 1ST AMENDMENT DOES NOT PROTECT YOU FROM OTHER PEOPLE TELLING YOU TO STFU AND GET THE FUCK OUT.

YOU SIMPLE BITCH LOL SO STUPID.

Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

Re:ATTENTION MORON PSEUDO-LIBERTARIAN HUXSTER

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet they sell Mein Kampf without hesitation.

Schiff the Nazi

[guruevi]

Burn ze books, jahwohl Fuhrer AOC und die filmen too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

People that forget history are bound to repeat it. And, no I don't agree with anti-vaccers, I think they're morons, but "burning" their books only puts them in the underground.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Vaccines: So Safe Questioning Them Is Prohibite

[guruevi]

Then your community needs to act, not the federal government because my community isn't (as) stupid.

Anti-vaxxers. Darwin. Winning!

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it.

Why do we want to convince stupid people to have kids that will survive to breeding age? Makes no sense.

Re:Vaccines: So Safe Questioning Them Is Prohibite

[ClickOnThis]

Then your community needs to act, not the federal government because my community isn't (as) stupid.

Translation: I've got mine, so piss off, Feds.

That works great, until someone from "my" community shows up in "yours" with measles. What then?

Re:Vaccines: So Safe Questioning Them Is Prohibite

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't agree with banning anything, but it is hardly "safe" questioning they are doing, it is the exact opposite.

Re:Anti-vaxxers. Darwin. Winning!

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue is they take out others too. not just themselves.

The potential dangers of vaccines should be discus

[Anonymous Coward]

There are legitimate ways in which vaccines can fail, such mutating into an active, virulent form of the virus. Or, it can contain toxic additives, such as Mercury.

However, a milligram of Mercury injected into the bloodstream is unlikely to cause autism. The old fashioned vaccines were made of virus grown in chicken eggs. Chicken eggs are not toxic to humans.

Antivaxxers are shit

[Anonymous Coward]

They need to be given every disease that vaccines prevent and handed a Darwin Award and sent to an uninhabited island north of Canada and be done with them.

That will give the world many benefits:

1. eradication of diseases that should have been gone decades ago.
2. Alt-right dipshits will be destroyed
3. As will the SJW morons
4. The gene pool will be clean and tidy

Fuck antivaxxers with a rusty chainsaw

Re:Antivaxxers are shit

[Anonymous Coward]

numbnuts

Re: The potential dangers of vaccines should be di

[Anonymous Coward]

You show exactly why these 'documentaries' are so dangerous when you spew their false claims as facts.

Re:Vaccines: So Safe Questioning Them Is Prohibite

[Anonymous Coward]

"Educate yourself on the debunked claim that vaccinations cause autism, and join the rest of us who want to protect ourselves as well as everyone else."

The only positive evidence I've ever seen that vaccines do anything except save a bunch of lives, is this disgusting censorship by the gatekeepers of products, knowledge, and media. If you want to start banning shit that's wrong and harmful, there's a whole bunch of religious texts you need to get after first- a number equal to "all the books promoting a faith you don't believe in" (which could well be *all* of them). Might also go after the communist manifesto, communism managed to beat all religions combined for "total humans slain as a result" in merely a century, definitely no small feat given that humans have been fighting religious wars basically forever.

If something is true, why does it need corporations and governments punishing any who dissent? A quick glance at history reveals that those who fight to suppress a contrary view are usually fighting the truth. Sure, not always. But usually.

People watched it. Just like all the other BS docs

[BlueCoder]

It was there because it was low cost. Whomever made it sold it for very cheap to get out their message. Just like all the UFO documentaries. People are choosing to watch it so amazon was showing it.

While Amazon doesn't have to sell anything they don't want to I think it's wrong of them. To editorialize means you are biased which in turn gives reason for people to distrust you. If you sensor some things and not others it henceforth means you endorse them. It's a huge can of worms. And just like banned books it lends them credibility deservedly so or not. If Bezos' really disagreed enough to do something than then it would have been better to do a counter documentary himself rather than shutting them down or simply posted a ghosted editorial.

As far as the subject matter itself.... there is a modicum of credibility to the issue. There are diminishing returns vs risk. Some people will die in the lottery of rare reactions. Who gets to decide what reasonable risk is? You can document the numerous people dying from the disease on one end and on the other you have the few children that die or other are supposedly otherwise harmed from a bad reaction to a vaccine. You have parents on both ends questioning their decisions in 20/20 hindsight. Beyond that there are people that choose to live a more natural/primitive way of life.

Fahrenheit 451 comes to mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

Firemen whose job it is to destroy badthink literature.

Only, today's are digital firemen; Mr. Bradbury hadn't thought that far ahead back when he published it in 1953.

Re:Fahrenheit 451 comes to mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is still available to anyone who is stupid enough to waste their time on, well what is lower than pseudo-science?

When Netflix takes down a show are they guilty of censorship?

numbnuts

Witches, books and burnings

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon should not need to figuratively burn these things, but they do need a proper classification system, where hocus-pocus, fiction and fantasy are clearly marked as such.

Anti Vax is real

[Anonymous Coward]

Strangely enough, I know several college educated people who believe vaccines cause autism. Worse yet, as the parent of an autistic child numerous people just assume that I believe that nonsense as well.

Re:Anti Vax is real

[Anonymous Coward]

Not every college degree is the same. If you find anti-vaxxers among someone with a degree in human biology, that may be concerning. But if you find anti-vaxxers among someone who has a degree in something like ancient Mesopotamian dance therapy, it may not be that surprising.

2019: Good riddance to the "marketplace of ideas"

[GameboyRMH]

I'm quite serious about that title. This is the year that wider society finally puts and end to the intellectual equivalent of drinking the waste water used to wash an ebola corpse.

The "marketplace of ideas" is one of the most damaging ideas to come out of the Western world in the late 20th century. The idea basically says that spreading terrible ideas and lies is beneficial or at least harmless as long as it can be debated. The world we live in today is its disproof: It was supposed to elevate the truth and instead a large fraction of the population intellectually lives in a fictional universe while physically inhabiting our reality. Debating these ideas simply spreads them to vulnerable people while having no effect on those who are more swayed by reason and facts.

This doesn't mean a regression to actual government-backed censorship, but rather people using their freedoms to choose not to enable the spread of these ideas, rather than choosing to enable their spread.

Re:Vaccines: So Safe Questioning Them Is Prohibite

[F.Ultra]

That reasoning only works if these so called documentaries actually contained valid questions but the truth is that they are nothing more than pure slander and misinformation that cause actual harm to people (mostly children).

Re:Vaccines: So Safe Questioning Them Is Prohibite

[Anonymous Coward]

So CNN and Amazon are the Federal Government now?

Exactly why it will work

[Anonymous Coward]

"it just makes the people who already believe in this hunker down "

Right, and you realize how crazy hunkered down people act and sound? The crazier they look, the less likely people are to listen to them and the more they will see them for what they are... Crazy evangelists.

Gameboy(R)acist(M)isogynist(H)omophobe

[Anonymous Coward]

He doubles down on his calls for censorship. In this example he attempts to try and make it reasonable sounding, but in the past he exclusively has called for censorship of gays, blacks and women, hence the name change I gave him.

He explained to me that censoring those specific people shouldn't even be counted in stats about censorship because they don't count as real people.

Don't listen to this asshole. He only wants people like Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden (old white guys) to be allowed to speak publicly.

This makes sense in theory

[lamer01]

But, when we have limited outlets for speech the way youtube controls the majority of online video expression and amazon controls online retail/book distribution then the waters get murky.

A mistake...

[ElizabethGreene]

I respectfully disagree with this action. It is not the place of governments, libraries, or bookstores (including Amazon) to police content. The slippery slope argument is very appropriate here.

Re:A mistake...

[Anonymous Coward]

A bookstore, including Amazon can police what they sell as much as they damn well please, removing that right from them is basically fascism

Then there's "Root Cause"

[Whumpsnatz]

Netflix removed "Root Cause", which blames root canals for a host of medical problems, due to complaints from dentist groups. I saw it before that happened, and while I found it irritating and often flaky, it definitely made me think. Then I found a rebuttal, and I decided there is real reason for concern.

https://www.todaysrdh.com/root...

Should the anti-vaxxing pieces have been removed? Tough call.

Re:Vaccines: So Safe Questioning Them Is Prohibite

[Anonymous Coward]

No, only unvaxed kids. If your kids are vaccinated, it doesn't matter whether any other kid has measles or not.

You know Atheist is the fastest growing segment

[rsilvergun]

(and no, it's not a "religion"). Even among believes "Young Earth" creationists and folks who believe the Noah flood happened are declining.

Education works, but for it to work it needs to be fact based.

really

[Anonymous Coward]

So everyone seems worried about the propaganda machine from both sides and what is being ignored is where do all these illnesses come from, did you know that just touching household bleach can trigger cancer?, A vaccine doesn't cure anything or promise that you won't get sick, same as non-vaccine.
what we need to work on is building strong immune systems more nutritious food (not just more food), safer chemicals under out sink and much better mindsets.

Show anti-vaxxers how disease affects victims

[kbahey]

Any time you run across anti-vaxxers, show them how preventable diseases affected the life of people who did not get vaccinated.

I grew up before vaccination for polio was common, and saw many kids and colleagues who were disabled, ranging from simple limping to having totally non-functional limbs. And those are the lucky ones, who survived the disease. Others died.

Show them examples of that: how Itzhak Perlman walks on stage, because he was disabled by polio when he was a child. Tell them that when he travels he has to get assistance with having his violin and bag carried, because he cannot do so while walking with his crutches.

Go on Google images, and search for "smallpox scars" and show them how their boy or girl will look like if they ever get infected and survive the infection.

If someone makes a video from old footage of all these diseases, it may sway some who are willing to follow the evidence.

Re:Just what we need.....More conspiracies

[rv6502]

Worse: It'll fuel all the anti-vax conspiracy theories.

just make a pro-vaccine movie

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who need to see this movie will never get past the opening title. The be in the lobby demanding refunds.

Hmmm

[jason777]

All this effort to remove anti-vaccine content, makes me wonder what they are trying to hide?

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

That is because you are a moron. There is nothing to hide because there is zero content in an antivaxxers argument.

Would you want to be complicit in the death of many people? That is what wasting bandwidth on this bullshit does.

numbnuts

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

That is because you are a moron. There is nothing to hide because there is zero content in an antivaxxers argument.

Would you want to be complicit in the death of many people? That is what wasting bandwidth on this bullshit does.

numbnuts

Hmm... Comments like these are really making me start to believe the anti-vaxxers.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

That is because you are stupid enough to believe something with zero facts.

Enjoy your polio and measles.

numbnuts

Re:Vaccines: So Safe Questioning Them Is Prohibite

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon works with the CIA. This has been known for years.

NO.

[bussdriver]

If you believe big pharma doesn't measure human life in profits and will knowingly allow people to DIE if the lawsuits and coverups are far cheaper then you are as gullible as the anti-vaccine crowd.

1) You setup a pattern of acceptable censorship under the guise "think of the children" and it's no different than tyrants use fear and demonization to cover their power grabs.

2) Creating dark areas will attract evil people where they have little risk of exposure. Like gay pedophiles are attracted to highly trusted positions at religious institutions... Improperly dealing with a legit issue (or not) CREATES future problems.

3) people who do not get vaccinated get sick. maybe die. their choice. you don't have to worry, you got the shot and you lucked out on not having side effects that may exist.

4) Yes their children might die. Their bad luck. Their children are more likely to die in a car accident from a cell phone driver... don't see you campaigning on that issue as extremely...

Re:NO.

[F.Ultra]

That big pharma measure profits over human life have exactly nothing to do with my post. That big pharma works that way is the reason why we have governmental regulations on the pharma industry that costs big pharma billions in order to prove that their drugs work and that they are safe. And no this is not a "pattern of acceptable censorship", no one here is denying the antivaxxers from making their voice heard, this is just a private company not letting the antivaxxers use their store as a platform for their propaganda.

Re:NO.

[bussdriver]

Sometimes people just reply to a posted comment not because it's a direct reply to that comment.

Free speech is useless if NOBODY HEARS IT. Such as the free speech zones created during the Bush years where they attempted to move them so far away that they were irrelevant.

When you KILL the public space, nobody can get up on a soap box; that can become trespassing.

The internet may currently still have some options open... but it's moving away from freedom:
    We are headed into another puppet democracy; where you get to vote but if your votes are even counted fairly, your candidates will be unknown OR won't even be on the ballet OR don't have a chance so you pick the lesser of two evils. Your "free" and it's a "democracy" but only for sake of argument; functionally, it's dead. If that didn't make a point, think of somebody trying to fool you into thinking a gift card is like cash. Which is close to what Facebook is aiming for with it's recreation of the internet, AOL style.

FOOD for thought: What is the difference between propaganda and education? (being correct has nothing to do with either.)

Re:NO.

[F.Ultra]

Free speech is far from useless if no one hears it. E.g the problem with speaking your mind in North Korea or Iran is not that no one will hear you but that you risk getting jailed, tortured and/or killed and with the added fun that it also might be extended to your whole family. And not being on Amazon, Facebook or Youtube is not to "kill the public space", stuffing you at the back of my van when you try to speak your mind at the public square is killing the public space.

Re:NO.

[bussdriver]

You don't have to go 100% authoritarian to have major problems. NK is an usually extreme situation where the you dare not risk the majority organizing because they all see some of the BS and when they realize everybody does and thinks like them a tipping point is inevitable. This is where a Twitter revolution can do a lot of good; but that doesn't make Twitter all good either... think of the harm its causing in democracies (more harm than good... often technology is 80/20... mostly negative. sadly.)

Working control can be done without drawing attention to the control system. The Barbra Streisand effect can be avoided. We have A Brave New World control scheme and it's evolving along those lines. You censor by distracting with alternatives; including "alternative facts." Facebook/Youtube kills the public space by replacing it with something customized to be better to YOU. This is always preferable because shared public anything is going to have more compromises. They don't have to BAN something by force like 1984... that is a primitive last resort with high resource use. A Brave New World is one of positive psychology which has been proven more effective; but even so, it is the flip side technique. You can't fool everybody all the time; but if you use enough tricks you can fool a greater number.

Then you just have to devise a system for the minority who slip past the cracks to be alienated and opposed by the controlled majority. The minority problem can be solved by more 1984 measures because the majority won't care if YouTube censors something unpopular or nutty sounding to them. (many impossible nutty things sound nutty at 1st because it's so revolutionary.) The problem is you hand over control of this public space to 3rd parties with more power than governments had. Sure nobody is arrested, but they are not heard and will be filtered out quickly. It's not gone far enough just yet to become a big enough problem to make an obvious point but it'll do plenty of harm to a lesser degree long before it becomes so bad that you can see something and say "we should do something about that." It may never, but it doesn't mean that the damage is not going on just because you can't easily see it running rampant.

“Take your son,” God said, “your

[Anonymous Coward]

For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion(operation of wandering)(planet) so that they will believe the lie.

Mystery Red of the Great American Eclipse
It has blood on it!
ABCNews: Eclipse makes pendulum wander
Sun researchers find strange eclipse reading

Megol the homophobe

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep,
Riots to prevent a gay man from giving a speech and Megol pretends it didn't happen. Why you ask? Because Megol doesn't consider a gay man to be a human and not deserving of the right of free speech. Therefore he can now claim it didn't happen.

Why is it liberals seem to think gays/blacks/women are not actual humans and when they are censored it isn't even mentioned? I thought liberals stood up for the "oppressed". but it now seems they are the oppressors and just act as if non-white old guys are non-human.

What a disgrace.

Re: Megol the homophobe

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, liberals claim to âtolerateâ(TM) blacks and gays. âTolerateâ(TM) means to endure something you donâ(TM)t like, so theyâ(TM)ve always been upfront about not particularly liking them.

What about Adam Sandler movies too?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't find Adam Sandler funny. Can Amazon remove those movies too?

Re:What about Adam Sandler movies too?

[Anonymous Coward]

As bad as his movies can be, they haven't killed anyone.

numbnuts

Re:Anti-vaxxers. Darwin. Winning!

[goose-incarnated]

The issue is they take out others too. not just themselves.

That only matters if they take out others at a higher rate than they take out themselves. If they are taking out themselves at a higher rate than they are taking out others, then it's a self-solving problem.

Re:Vaccines: So Safe Questioning Them Is Prohibite

[guruevi]

When it comes to speech, piss off Feds should be pretty much your standard response. We're not talking about quarantining antivaccers, that would be, under certain circumstances, be acceptable and in many places (like mine) you can't go with your kids to school or daycare without a vaccine or a doctors reason not to have one.

But as far as education, that's your and your community's primary responsibility. If anti vaccination in your community is reaching deadly numbers a Federal law won't help.

one of my kids is an antivaxer

[Anonymous Coward]

Still hasnt vacinated her 3 year old.
But this is soooo wrong. Its bad enough when the gov censors. But companies doing it?

The right wingers are gettimg suppressed. Now the anti vaxers. Soon itll be something you believe / accept as truth.

Re:one of my kids is an antivaxer

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically you are a shit parent that raised a total dumbass cunt that is putting her kid and other kids near the little at risk.

Good job fuckstain

numbnuts

Vaccine + Liability

[Anonymous Coward]

Please Google those two words before spouting off platitudes about vaccination.
Yes, vaccination is good, IF they are safe and effective. Old legislation prevents this from happening.
Many vaccines are neither safe or effective. The immunity they create is the one from legal liability for damages.
As such it is a pharmaceutical company's wet dream. Don't get sucked in.

Um... yeah, yeah it exists

[rsilvergun]

most YouTube videos are artificially long to meet the 10 minute minimum for advertiser dollars and ranking (it's not a hard minimum, but you're less likely to get monetized if you're under 10). It's actually annoying, since videos often take 10 minutes to say 3 minutes worth of content.

Cut a video down to the punchy, important stuff and with modern compression you can fit it into a few megabytes and email to anyone who asks. Hell, you could host it yourself on a free hosting service as long as you either didn't have too big an audience or you rotated the videos out.

No thought control happening

[rsilvergun]

they just won't give you a free mega phone.

And I'd like to see folks complaining a bit more about this when it comes to thought control. Pushing propaganda messages by buying up all the media is a lot more like thought control then not platforming somebody's dangerous nonsense.

Do you care as much

[Anonymous Coward]

About undocumented migrants? They aren't getting vaccinated, and every measles outbreak seems to happen in a far left "sanctuary" city.