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GoFundMe Bans Anti-Vaccine Campaigns (slashgear.com)
An anonymous reader quotes SlashGear:
Crowdfunding platform GoFundMe has banned campaigns that seek funds for spreading misinformation related to vaccines, the company has revealed. The platform has been used in the past by anti-vaxxers as part of their mission to promote conspiracy theories related to supposed health issues caused by vaccinations. Current campaigns in violation of this new rule will be removed.
GoFundMe has previously faced controversy for allowing anti-vax campaigns on the platform, including late last year when a mother sought funds for a custody battle allegedly intending to, in part, prevent her kids from being vaccinated. An increasing number of tech companies have cracked down on anti-vaccination content, including Facebook and Pinterest, and now GoFundMe is among them.
GoFundMe has previously faced controversy for allowing anti-vax campaigns on the platform, including late last year when a mother sought funds for a custody battle allegedly intending to, in part, prevent her kids from being vaccinated. An increasing number of tech companies have cracked down on anti-vaccination content, including Facebook and Pinterest, and now GoFundMe is among them.
They are *NOT* misguided. There is simply too much easily available, high quality information on the risks, the benefits and the working of vaccines.
These people are *wilfully ignorant*, and their actions put *other people* in danger.
If anti-vaxxers only risked themselves, no one would care. It would just be a particularly stupid pastime for them. Instead, anti-vaxxer *children* are first in harm's way, and right after that is basically "everyone with a compromised immune system".
They can continue to spew their stupidity if they want, but the rest of us sane people are perfectly justified in pressuring companies to kick that shit off their sites.
Freedom of speech doesn't get children killed. Show me an unvaccinated cold who died of the measles and we'll talk.
Government regulation kills more kids though. See: Waco
Seriously, these crazies think their precious free speech protects them from consequences of their stupid actions at endangering their kids' life.
Not as crazy as the people who think the solution to stupidity is to get rid of free speech.
Or people who don't have any understanding of what free speech actually means.
Even if we completely disregard the details of what "Free Speech" actually means and go by the definition that you are employing, there is not one "freedom" that is unlimited. Not. A. Single. One.
Last I checked, it's still illegal to scream "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, for example. Incitement to riot is another. Or libel laws.
These anti-vaxxers are no different, IMO. They are deliberately spreading misinformation, and that misinformation is directly responsible for people either dying or the next best thing to it, from diseases that were declared eradicated for decades. If it was the anti-vaxxers themselves that were killing themselves off, then I'd have no problem with this. But they're not. They're injuring completely unrelated people.
If you think it's acceptable for this to happen, then you must also agree that all existing laws that restrict any form of speech should not exist. People should be free to scream "Fire" in a crowded theatre. It should be legal to publicly and prominently lie about basically anything. Hell, It should be legal for companies to falsify their quarterly reports, because otherwise you'd be denying them the right to "free speech".
But I'll say it again since you and presumably others seem unable to understand this basic concept:
Free speech does exactly one thing: It protects you from criticizing the government. That's it. It does NOT give you a divine right to say whatever idiot thing pops into your head, without any repercussions from other people.
Please don't make me pull out the XKCD reference.