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Amazon's Charity 'AmazonSmile' Funds Anti-Vaccine Groups (theguardian.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the donating-to-disinformation dept.

An anonymous reader quotes the Guardian: Amazon appears to be helping fund anti-vaccine not-for-profit organizations through its charity arm, the AmazonSmile Foundation. The AmazonSmile fundraising program -- through which Amazon donates 0.5% of the purchase price of a shopper's Amazon transactions to an organization of their choice -- is promoted on the websites of four prominent anti-vaccine organizations... Numerous other anti-vaccine organizations are also listed by Amazon as eligible for the donations.

Amazon's donations are just the latest example of how US tech companies have -- wittingly or not -- helped to promote and finance the anti-vaccine movement... Not-for-profit organizations are key players in the anti-vaccine movement in the U.S.

6 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Must be a 501(c)(3) charity by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To receive donations, the organization must be a 501(c)(3) public charitable organization. If these groups get approved by the IRS for this status, it would be hard for Amazon to stop it.

  2. Re:Hate Groups by bferrell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe because anti-vaxer stupidity has triggered extremely dangerous outbreaks of disease?

    Just a thought.

  3. Well, customer stupidity is good for business by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is just one instance where this becomes glaringly obvious. Personally, I would not mind so much that a lot of people are complete morons. But the anti-vaxxers do harm others and that is not acceptable.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:Well, customer stupidity is good for business by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But the anti-vaxxers do harm others and that is not acceptable.

      You see this argument a lot. What it leaves is the question of why you don't trust the vaccine you got?

      First, the measles vaccine is known to "only" be 97% effective. Second, there are children too young to be vaccinated and third, some people cannot be vaccinated because of medical issues. Also, herd immunity for Measles is at 93...95%, so there is not a lot of margin. Also, who said they would harm me? I find it completely unacceptable that some people have the arrogance to endanger others without any good arguments on their side. I think we need these restrictions on non-vaccinated (by choice) people as well, for example no access to public places like schools, restaurants, shops, etc.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  4. Re:40 years ago by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Insightful

    40 years of generously giving these nutjobs a seat at the debate table under the "marketplace of ideas" school of thought, and then social media connecting these sparsely spread nutjobs together and giving them a megaphone.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  5. Re:40 years ago by omnichad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The vaccines worked too well. There's very little living memory of just how bad these diseases were or the relative risk compared to potential vaccine complications.