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Starting this with a few disclaimers: 1) I unequivocally believe all anti-vaxxers are wrong, 2) I absolutely support efforts to fight their misinformation, 3)

Starting this with a few disclaimers: 1) I unequivocally believe all anti-vaxxers are wrong, 2) I absolutely support efforts to fight their misinformation, 3) I don't even necessarily think it was a bad decision by gofundme to do this; Now, what I'd like to question is the effectiveness of taking down those campaigns. My points: 1) I doubt that an average user scrolling through gofundme would see and decide to support such a campaign, I'd imagine most of the funding comes from the links being directly shared 2) The above makes me think such campaigns will simply move to a GoFundMe competitor and be equally (un?)successful, effectively nullifying any changes 3) Gives more attention + victim points to anti vaxxers 4) If their discourse is further pushed out of mainstream platforms, does it actually reduce the spread of their ideas or just limit their exposure to counter-arguments and public condemnation? Edit: formatting

maxaf 8y ago
Anti-vaxxers are like terrorists: they don't really do much per se, but the FUD they spread does immense harm to society. Defunding & deplatforming such groups is a methodology that is practically inescapable for as long as laymen are liable to believe anti-vaxxers or be afraid of terrorists. Of course, the real solution is education: both of the purveyors of misinformation and of those who fall victim to it. That's a multi-generational process that should ideally happen in parallel with short-term fixes.
- creaghpatr 8y ago
  >[Anti-vaxxers] are like terrorists: they don't really do much per se, but the FUD they spread does immense harm to society. Defunding & deplatforming such groups is a methodology that is practically inescapable for as long as laymen are liable to believe [anti-vaxxers] or be afraid of terrorists. You could replace that phrase with many different ideologies. Would you?
  - astrodust 8y ago
    They're not like terrorists, they are terrorists. Some of these diseases we have vaccines for are vicious and could kill more than any suicide bomber could dream of.
    - creaghpatr 8y ago
      What about climate-change deniers? Aren't they killing us all with their ideology?
      - astrodust 8y ago
        Yes, on an even larger scale.
  - maxaf 8y ago
    Good question. I'd prefer to set a fairly high bar for elevating ideologies to the plane of terrorism. One criteria could be based on the willingness of an ideology's followers to exit the bounds of civilized discourse whenever it becomes clear that they're in the wrong. The basic blueprint seems to be "group X should stop doing thing Y to group Z", where X may be "doctors" or "the United States", thing Y may be "vaccination" or "occupation", and group Z may be "Muslim lands" or "children". There comes a point in each debate when it's time to give up the fight and accept defeat. Unfortunately, some folks simply cannot do this. It is then that I would consider them terrorists.
- Not_a_pizza 8y ago
  Labeling people you disagree with as terrorists. Great way to make friends, eh? It's always easy to discount the view of an opponent, but much more difficult to appreciate it.
  - maxaf 8y ago
    Whether I agree with them or not does not matter. These people are provably, verifiably, objectively wrong. They are unable or unwilling to accept the wrongness of their ways. They resort to uncivilized methods of pursuing their goals. How are they not terrorists?
    - Not_a_pizza 8y ago
      Saying that people are wrong without talking to them is a great way to destroy societies. There objectively are things they are wrong about and things they are right about, just like you.
  - astura 8y ago
    We are talking about people who are endangering public health here, so while I don't personally agree with the "terrorist" stance, I still don't think it's just a case of "naming people you disagree with terrorists."
    - Not_a_pizza 8y ago
      Endangering health happens on both sides. Big pharma pushes pain meds. They also push vaccines. The difference being vaccines don't normally harm people, but when they do, it's impossible to get compensation. Pain meds can cause addiction and harm much more easily.
- repolfx 8y ago
  The problem is that this sort of move will make anti-vaxxing a bigger problem, not a smaller problem. A huge part of this sort of thing is driven by distrust of institutions, which has been in long term decline. Can you trust doctors or are they in the pockets of big pharma? Is the government suppressing vital information related to the health of your child because they're afraid to admit they were wrong? Etc etc. Attempting to suppress/oppress these people to shut them up is a bad idea because it'll simply be taken as evidence that there is in fact some sort of malign pro-vaccination conspiracy, that their arguments can't be rebutted, and they'll become more dedicated to spreading 'the truth' as they see it. This is a typically short sighted decision by corporates. If GoFundMe don't like anti-vaxxers, they should make a video shooting down common anti-vaxxer ideas and then embed it at the top of every crowdfund related to it, so everyone who wants to contribute money to it is exposed to the counter arguments. Heck, make watching the vid mandatory before you can donate. But shutting down legal discourse is bad bad bad and will only inflame the situation.
- cmurf 8y ago
  They are perhaps impressively myopic, that they overestimate a statistically insignificant chance of an undesirable side effect of vaccination, while totally ignoring the significant chance of acquiring one of the diseases the vaccine will prevent, dying from it or having life long consequences as a result. But that is the mental health problem of anti-vaxx, is not looking at the big picture. A widespread highly contagious fatal disease puts society at an even greater risk: panic. There's all kinds of examples of humans, even in relatively modern times, trying to eject sick people from society. And that's the kind version. Locking sick people in barns and churches, and burning them down, barricading burning entire villages to the ground due to fear of contagion. You think the anti-vaxxers are terrorists? Not a good word anyway, but when the general population starts to freak out over a disease, that will be terror. The idea we're really that different from medieval times in the face of a virulent contagion is hilarious to me, especially with all the fantastic obsession with zombie shows.
scriptkiddy 8y ago
I think this decision had 2 motivators, in order of importance: 1. Business 2. Ethics The ethics effect the business. GoFundMe does not want to be known as a company that helped an organization allow the resurgence of Polio for instance. From a business standpoint, GoFundMe needs to maintain positive PR if it wants to keep making money. It is none of GoFundMe's concern if these anti-vax individuals or organizations move to a different platform.
- luiscleto 8y ago
  I completely agree. That's why I was trying to distance my argument from the perspective of whether GoFundMe made a good or bad decision. I just wanted to bring up the point from a societal perspective, since it's society as a whole who often calls for actions like this from big companies (making it a "good" decision for them even if just for the PR). Are we going to see a positive change in society from this, is it just irrelevant in the end, or could we even be making the issue harder to fight in the long run? I don't necessarily have a strong opinion on what the answer to that question is, it's just genuinely a question.
- RobertRoberts 8y ago
  But doesn't GoFundMe support many projects that are obviously total scams? This would seem that their ethics are not consistent.
hellllllllooo 8y ago
5) A private company making an ethical choice on what to show on its platform is not responsible for where the discourse moves to but making a difference in the platform they control is a good start and a stance other platforms should take.
baddox 8y ago
> 1) I doubt that an average user scrolling through gofundme would see and decide to support such a campaign, I'd imagine most of the funding comes from the links being directly shared That's probably true, although I really don't know why it's particularly relevant. GoFundMe probably doesn't want people funding anti-vaccine campaigns regardless of how they arrived at the web page. > 2) The above makes me think such campaigns will simply move to a GoFundMe competitor and be equally (un?)successful, effectively nullifying any changes How does that nullify any changes? There are a finite number of crowdfunding platforms, and this reduces the number by one. And of course, this is a particularly large and prominent one. > 3) Gives more attention + victim points to anti vaxxers I don't really buy the "don't give them what they want" argument. If they really do want press about how harmful their practices are and how children are dying because of their campaigns, well okay, I'm fine with giving them this desire. I think that they should be "victims" of de-platforming, even if that's what they want. It's theoretically possible to get the Streisand effect, where their platform is increased, but I highly doubt that's likely when you remove them from huge platforms with massive market share, like YouTube or GoFundMe. > 4) If their discourse is further pushed out of mainstream platforms, does it actually reduce the spread of their ideas or just limit their exposure to counter-arguments and public condemnation? There are probably some anti-vaccers who are genuinely mislead, but the prominent voices in the movement almost certainly are aware of the invalidity of their claims. I don't think we have any lack of exposure to pro-vaccine arguments.
- RobertRoberts 8y ago
  >...but the prominent voices in the movement almost certainly are aware of the invalidity of their claims. What do you object about these two medical doctors issues with vaccines? I would consider them more prominent than you or I, so their opinion/knowledge should hold more weight than ours. Yet, but the very limited standards set, they would be called "anti-vaxxers", even though Dr. Halverson provides vaccine services for children and familes. Dr. Richard Halvorsen (England) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMs1ue8j9CM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMs1ue8j9CM Dr. Suzanne Humphries (USA) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFQQOv-Oi6U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFQQOv-Oi6U
  - 8y ago

maxaf 8y ago

Anti-vaxxers are like terrorists: they don't really do much per se, but the FUD they spread does immense harm to society. Defunding & deplatforming such groups is a methodology that is practically inescapable for as long as laymen are liable to believe anti-vaxxers or be afraid of terrorists. Of course, the real solution is education: both of the purveyors of misinformation and of those who fall victim to it. That's a multi-generational process that should ideally happen in parallel with short-term fixes.

creaghpatr 8y ago
>[Anti-vaxxers] are like terrorists: they don't really do much per se, but the FUD they spread does immense harm to society. Defunding & deplatforming such groups is a methodology that is practically inescapable for as long as laymen are liable to believe [anti-vaxxers] or be afraid of terrorists. You could replace that phrase with many different ideologies. Would you?
- astrodust 8y ago
  They're not like terrorists, they are terrorists. Some of these diseases we have vaccines for are vicious and could kill more than any suicide bomber could dream of.
  - creaghpatr 8y ago
    What about climate-change deniers? Aren't they killing us all with their ideology?
    - astrodust 8y ago
      Yes, on an even larger scale.
- maxaf 8y ago
  Good question. I'd prefer to set a fairly high bar for elevating ideologies to the plane of terrorism. One criteria could be based on the willingness of an ideology's followers to exit the bounds of civilized discourse whenever it becomes clear that they're in the wrong. The basic blueprint seems to be "group X should stop doing thing Y to group Z", where X may be "doctors" or "the United States", thing Y may be "vaccination" or "occupation", and group Z may be "Muslim lands" or "children". There comes a point in each debate when it's time to give up the fight and accept defeat. Unfortunately, some folks simply cannot do this. It is then that I would consider them terrorists.
Not_a_pizza 8y ago
Labeling people you disagree with as terrorists. Great way to make friends, eh? It's always easy to discount the view of an opponent, but much more difficult to appreciate it.
- maxaf 8y ago
  Whether I agree with them or not does not matter. These people are provably, verifiably, objectively wrong. They are unable or unwilling to accept the wrongness of their ways. They resort to uncivilized methods of pursuing their goals. How are they not terrorists?
  - Not_a_pizza 8y ago
    Saying that people are wrong without talking to them is a great way to destroy societies. There objectively are things they are wrong about and things they are right about, just like you.
- astura 8y ago
  We are talking about people who are endangering public health here, so while I don't personally agree with the "terrorist" stance, I still don't think it's just a case of "naming people you disagree with terrorists."
  - Not_a_pizza 8y ago
    Endangering health happens on both sides. Big pharma pushes pain meds. They also push vaccines. The difference being vaccines don't normally harm people, but when they do, it's impossible to get compensation. Pain meds can cause addiction and harm much more easily.
repolfx 8y ago
The problem is that this sort of move will make anti-vaxxing a bigger problem, not a smaller problem. A huge part of this sort of thing is driven by distrust of institutions, which has been in long term decline. Can you trust doctors or are they in the pockets of big pharma? Is the government suppressing vital information related to the health of your child because they're afraid to admit they were wrong? Etc etc. Attempting to suppress/oppress these people to shut them up is a bad idea because it'll simply be taken as evidence that there is in fact some sort of malign pro-vaccination conspiracy, that their arguments can't be rebutted, and they'll become more dedicated to spreading 'the truth' as they see it. This is a typically short sighted decision by corporates. If GoFundMe don't like anti-vaxxers, they should make a video shooting down common anti-vaxxer ideas and then embed it at the top of every crowdfund related to it, so everyone who wants to contribute money to it is exposed to the counter arguments. Heck, make watching the vid mandatory before you can donate. But shutting down legal discourse is bad bad bad and will only inflame the situation.
cmurf 8y ago
They are perhaps impressively myopic, that they overestimate a statistically insignificant chance of an undesirable side effect of vaccination, while totally ignoring the significant chance of acquiring one of the diseases the vaccine will prevent, dying from it or having life long consequences as a result. But that is the mental health problem of anti-vaxx, is not looking at the big picture. A widespread highly contagious fatal disease puts society at an even greater risk: panic. There's all kinds of examples of humans, even in relatively modern times, trying to eject sick people from society. And that's the kind version. Locking sick people in barns and churches, and burning them down, barricading burning entire villages to the ground due to fear of contagion. You think the anti-vaxxers are terrorists? Not a good word anyway, but when the general population starts to freak out over a disease, that will be terror. The idea we're really that different from medieval times in the face of a virulent contagion is hilarious to me, especially with all the fantastic obsession with zombie shows.

scriptkiddy 8y ago

I think this decision had 2 motivators, in order of importance: 1. Business 2. Ethics The ethics effect the business. GoFundMe does not want to be known as a company that helped an organization allow the resurgence of Polio for instance. From a business standpoint, GoFundMe needs to maintain positive PR if it wants to keep making money. It is none of GoFundMe's concern if these anti-vax individuals or organizations move to a different platform.

luiscleto 8y ago
I completely agree. That's why I was trying to distance my argument from the perspective of whether GoFundMe made a good or bad decision. I just wanted to bring up the point from a societal perspective, since it's society as a whole who often calls for actions like this from big companies (making it a "good" decision for them even if just for the PR). Are we going to see a positive change in society from this, is it just irrelevant in the end, or could we even be making the issue harder to fight in the long run? I don't necessarily have a strong opinion on what the answer to that question is, it's just genuinely a question.
RobertRoberts 8y ago
But doesn't GoFundMe support many projects that are obviously total scams? This would seem that their ethics are not consistent.

hellllllllooo 8y ago

5) A private company making an ethical choice on what to show on its platform is not responsible for where the discourse moves to but making a difference in the platform they control is a good start and a stance other platforms should take.

baddox 8y ago

> 1) I doubt that an average user scrolling through gofundme would see and decide to support such a campaign, I'd imagine most of the funding comes from the links being directly shared That's probably true, although I really don't know why it's particularly relevant. GoFundMe probably doesn't want people funding anti-vaccine campaigns regardless of how they arrived at the web page. > 2) The above makes me think such campaigns will simply move to a GoFundMe competitor and be equally (un?)successful, effectively nullifying any changes How does that nullify any changes? There are a finite number of crowdfunding platforms, and this reduces the number by one. And of course, this is a particularly large and prominent one. > 3) Gives more attention + victim points to anti vaxxers I don't really buy the "don't give them what they want" argument. If they really do want press about how harmful their practices are and how children are dying because of their campaigns, well okay, I'm fine with giving them this desire. I think that they should be "victims" of de-platforming, even if that's what they want. It's theoretically possible to get the Streisand effect, where their platform is increased, but I highly doubt that's likely when you remove them from huge platforms with massive market share, like YouTube or GoFundMe. > 4) If their discourse is further pushed out of mainstream platforms, does it actually reduce the spread of their ideas or just limit their exposure to counter-arguments and public condemnation? There are probably some anti-vaccers who are genuinely mislead, but the prominent voices in the movement almost certainly are aware of the invalidity of their claims. I don't think we have any lack of exposure to pro-vaccine arguments.

RobertRoberts 8y ago
>...but the prominent voices in the movement almost certainly are aware of the invalidity of their claims. What do you object about these two medical doctors issues with vaccines? I would consider them more prominent than you or I, so their opinion/knowledge should hold more weight than ours. Yet, but the very limited standards set, they would be called "anti-vaxxers", even though Dr. Halverson provides vaccine services for children and familes. Dr. Richard Halvorsen (England) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMs1ue8j9CM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMs1ue8j9CM Dr. Suzanne Humphries (USA) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFQQOv-Oi6U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFQQOv-Oi6U
- 8y ago