3 ms·

Anti-vaxxing goes back literally centuries, but the internet definitely made it a THING.

crabette 2mo ago
I would blame the "social" media, on the old internet they had barely any visibility. Now that we have the blame let's talk about the punishment.
- ceejayoz 2mo ago
  > I would blame the "social" media, on the old internet they had barely any visibility. They managed to get plenty of visibility long before computers. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-50713991 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-50713991 > There followed a 100-year battle between the authorities and an often sceptical, sometimes aggressive, public. In Britain, a succession of laws made vaccinations free, then compulsory - backed by fines and even imprisonment. While riots flared in some towns, there was also more restrained opposition in the form of anti-vaccination leagues. For an increasingly literate population, pamphlets were produced with titles like "Vaccination: its fallacies and evils", "Vaccination, a Curse" and the suitably Gothic "Horrors of Vaccination".
  - crabette 2mo ago
    I do not disagree, but I don't remember antivax to be visible in pre-facebook internet either, so I only blame it for ~current wave
    - renegade-otter 2mo ago
      Pre-facebook, the barrier of entry was high enough that only fairly educated, students, and the nerds were driving the content. Once the barrier came down and the floodgates of "average intelligence" were opened, it was over.
      - crabette 2mo ago
        Nope, the move from nerd to professional publishing was around 1996, many years before "social".
    - bluGill 2mo ago
      It was there, and growing for decades. Pre Facebook it was a small niche but don't blame Facebook, that is mostly coincidence
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
tim333 2mo ago
I just looked it up and anti-vax arguments predate actual vaccines - they were used for variolation which was similar: >in a 1722 sermon entitled "The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation", the English theologian Reverend Edmund Massey argued that diseases are sent by God to punish sin and that any attempt to prevent smallpox via inoculation is a "diabolical operation" Vaccines date from about 1800.

I would blame the "social" media, on the old internet they had barely any visibility. Now that we have the blame let's talk about the punishment.

ceejayoz 2mo ago
> I would blame the "social" media, on the old internet they had barely any visibility. They managed to get plenty of visibility long before computers. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-50713991 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-50713991 > There followed a 100-year battle between the authorities and an often sceptical, sometimes aggressive, public. In Britain, a succession of laws made vaccinations free, then compulsory - backed by fines and even imprisonment. While riots flared in some towns, there was also more restrained opposition in the form of anti-vaccination leagues. For an increasingly literate population, pamphlets were produced with titles like "Vaccination: its fallacies and evils", "Vaccination, a Curse" and the suitably Gothic "Horrors of Vaccination".
- crabette 2mo ago
  I do not disagree, but I don't remember antivax to be visible in pre-facebook internet either, so I only blame it for ~current wave
  - renegade-otter 2mo ago
    Pre-facebook, the barrier of entry was high enough that only fairly educated, students, and the nerds were driving the content. Once the barrier came down and the floodgates of "average intelligence" were opened, it was over.
    - crabette 2mo ago
      Nope, the move from nerd to professional publishing was around 1996, many years before "social".
  - bluGill 2mo ago
    It was there, and growing for decades. Pre Facebook it was a small niche but don't blame Facebook, that is mostly coincidence
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]

tim333 2mo ago

I just looked it up and anti-vax arguments predate actual vaccines - they were used for variolation which was similar: >in a 1722 sermon entitled "The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation", the English theologian Reverend Edmund Massey argued that diseases are sent by God to punish sin and that any attempt to prevent smallpox via inoculation is a "diabolical operation" Vaccines date from about 1800.