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Digital Marketer Mailchimp Bans Anti-Vaccination Content (nbcnews.com) 193

Posted by msmash from the taking-a-stand dept.
Digital marketer Mailchimp has removed several anti-vaccination "activists" from its platform and will no longer provide services to newsletters that push anti-vaccination content. From a report: The move to block the anti-vaccination rhetoric follows similar actions by other tech companies and comes on the heels of increased pressure from public health advocates and lawmakers on digital platforms to curtail the spread of health misinformation. "Mailchimp has shut down a number of accounts for anti-vaccination content that violates our Terms of Use, and we're adding this category to our routine searches for prohibited content," a Mailchimp spokesperson said in a statement provided to NBC News. "Spreading misinformation about the safety and efficacy of vaccines poses a serious threat to public health and causes real-world harm. We cannot allow these individuals and groups to use our Marketing Platform to spread harmful messages and expand their audiences." The company began quietly enforcing this decision last week. "We trust the world's leading health authorities, like the CDC, WHO, and the AAP, and follow their guidance when assessing this type of misuse of our platform," the spokesperson said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
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Digital Marketer Mailchimp Bans Anti-Vaccination Content More

Digital Marketer Mailchimp Bans Anti-Vaccination Content

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  • Do you want AUSTISM in your children? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Then just shoot them with heroin.

  • I disagree with QUIETLY beginning to enforce this. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14, 2019 @04:38PM (#58764110)

    They should ADVERTISE that they're going to do it, at their own cost if need be. People should know. This is your product/service being offered, BE FORTHRIGHT. People like that better than silent campaigns.

    Side eyes at Zuckerberg the punk.

  • The only value of free speech (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Friday June 14, 2019 @04:39PM (#58764122) Journal
    The only value of "free speech" is to protect speech that you disagree with. Speech that everyone agrees with doesn't need protection.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yelling "Fire" in a crowded movie house is not protected speech. This is directly more damaging than that.

      • Re:The only value of free speech (Score:5, Insightful)

        by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Friday June 14, 2019 @05:03PM (#58764284) Journal

        Yelling "Fire" in a crowded movie house is not protected speech.

        Everyone who uses that example immediately misapplies it.

        This is directly more damaging than that.

        Hello. You seem to be advocating "speech that causes damage should be censored." You might as well advocate for the removal of free speech, because any speech can be demonstrated to be harmful.

        Sometimes especially harmful speech is exactly what is needed. In this case, what is needed is education and open discussion, not censorship.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Hello. You seem to be advocating "speech that causes damage should be censored." You might as well advocate for the removal of free speech, because any speech can be demonstrated to be harmful.

          Instead of, you know, talking complete bollocks, why not look at how this works in the real world? A court gets to make that decision based on well established legal principals.

          Otherwise the opposite is true, i.e. you can never stop anyone saying anything, even classified material, true threats, megaphone outside your house at 3 AM etc.

      • Yelling "Fire" in a crowded movie house is not protected speech.

        Yes, it is. Absolutely.
        You can be on the hook for direct consequences, if they can prove your intent. That's significantly different from criminalizing the speech itself. And good luck proving it.

      • Unless you're attempting to incite an imminent riot, as opposed to a simple and dangerous panic, it *is* protected speech. Refer to Brandenburg v. Ohio...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

      The only value of "free speech" is to protect speech that you disagree with. Speech that everyone agrees with doesn't need protection.

      From whom? On what basis can you exclude private businesses from the marketplace of ideas [mtsu.edu]? Can I force you to distribute my speech in the name of protecting it? Justify your line in the sand.

    • Fraud is not protected speech. The 1st amendment doesn't protect it, false statements of fact are part of a category of exceptions to constitutionally protected speech.

      And a lot of the current anti-vax movement bases its foundation on the fraudulent work of Andrew Wakefield [wikipedia.org], who engaged in a particularly callous pattern of unethical behavior in his anti-vaccine publications. This goes beyond simply blocking "unpopular" speech, but refusing to broadcast a con job with potentially disastrous public health c

      • Really bro? Your supporting link is an unabashedly one-sided Wikipedia article about a UK physician who had his license revoked for pointing out the dangers of the MMR vaccine? That's not helping your case.

        • So...are you arguing that the anti-vax movement is
          not based on Wakefield's fraud, or that Wakefield is not a con man? Do note his rapid descent into conspiracy theories after being stripped of his medical license. Or is the anti-vax movement based on something better than misinformed nonsense?

          Or are you arguing that internet services should be in the business of servicing what they understand to be frauds when they have the discretion?

          Or am I foolishly feeding a troll?
    • they're a private company. They have the right to refuse service.

      • they're a private company. They have the right to refuse service.

        I have the right to say they suck for doing so.

  • "Digital Marketer" (Score:3)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Friday June 14, 2019 @04:40PM (#58764126) Homepage Journal

    You mean spammer.

  • About time (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Twisted to help twisted ppl like that, who are killing kids with lies.

  • Who is this Mailchimp, and should we be wiping them off the face of the Internet? They are blocking some potential customer type? Who are their legitimate customers?

  • Everybody wants to be a fucking censor. Yes, I think the anti-vaxxers are ignorant assholes, but where does this end? Why does the Bill of Rights sometimes apply to everybody and sometimes applies to only the government? If it's a company that serves the public a method of communication it needs to follow the first amendment IMO.

    • You can't blame them for trying to shake the association between simian infection origins/vectors and deadly epidemics.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It does follow the first amendment. This is a private company drawing a line at the type of content their platform supports.It involves no recognized suspect categories of discrimination, so the company has the freedom to choose what speech occurs on their privately owned system. If the Anti-vax folks want to spread their message, they still can, they just can't use MailChimp.

      If I have a bullhorn, I'm using it how I want to use it. Freedom of Speech does not grant you use of my bullhorn for your speech.

      • Anyone whose religion doesn't support vaccinations could successfully sue mailchimp for discrimination against a protected class if they refused to carry their religious-based message against vaccinations.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

          Anyone whose religion doesn't support vaccinations could successfully sue mailchimp for discrimination against a protected class if they refused to carry their religious-based message against vaccinations.

          No, they couldn't, because the motivation for denying service to antivax mailings is not based upon an intent to discriminate based upon religious affiliation [uchicago.edu], but an intent to discriminate based upon objective falsity.

          Stop providing legal advice and making legal predictions. You're not a lawyer, you have

    • Fools, they could have kept those users and just add a link debunking antivaxxing to every antivaxxing email. Let the readers decide. This way they are just promoting the conspiracy that "they" don't want you to find out.

      Same is true for any "hate" speech -- if you are a private provider why not let it come out, just label it and add any contents against it as you wish, there are no rules to stop you. Let people decide what they are to think.

    • Bill of Rights doesn’t apply to private companies. You want to spew anti-vaccine bullshit; you can’t do it from my front yard. You want to yell about it from your front yard, that’s your business. Never confuse First Amendment right with some guarantee that people must be forced to hear you.
    • The 1st amendment does not provide absolute protection [wikipedia.org] for any possible thing you could say. The anti-vax movement is the fruit of a particularly fraudulent tree, so if a private company wants to disassociate themselves from that dangerous nonsense that's a good thing.

      This slippery slope argumentation of "but where will it stop?" over censorship really needs to figure out that a lot of the lines of where it does stop have already been drawn some time ago.

      • This slippery slope argumentation of "but where will it stop?" over censorship really needs to figure out that a lot of the lines of where it does stop have already been drawn some time ago.

        Companies like YouTube are redrawing the lines on a daily basis.

  • Fad Haters Gonna Hate (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14, 2019 @05:19PM (#58764378)

    No, it's not an effort to curtail health misinformation. It's an attempt to appease the loud mouths who go around raging at any company which doesn't actively suppress some topic they don't like. It's purely a PR goodwill attempt.

    If they actually cared about general well being, they'd halt all soda related advertising. Sugary drinks cause for more damage, hardship, and death than the anti-vaccine movement. Same with all those meds which are no more effective (and are often worse) than placebos. These are a lot of the common anti-depressants, heart health, and sleeping pills (these knock your consciousness out which isn't the same as sleeping). Those are all widely damaging and full of health misinformation. But no, those all have money behind them. We can't be against things that science disagrees with, we can only be against things that don't have money backing them.

    The things I listed are an active, serious threat to public health and cause real world harm across the globe. Anti-vacc only poses a threat and only currently causes minor harm to isolated areas. They are choosing one of the least impactful things they can do and look like easily pushed around fools for doing so.

    • The key difference between the harms of sugary drinks and questionably effective medicines, etc. vs. vaccines is that if a parent decides to feed their child a sugary drink, it ONLY affects their child

      If they decide not to vaccinate their child, it affects OTHER people's children

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's an attempt to appease the loud mouths who go around raging at any company which doesn't actively suppress some topic they don't like.

      These days the loudest mouths are usually the ones condemning the "censorship". Some companies have even learned how to harness that energy for their own marketing purposes, e.g. Nike and Gillette.

  • What else? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    We know it never ends. So what is next? Questioning global warming? Questioning other scientific theories? "Conspiracy" content? Most likely, and it's definition will expand to include anything not endorsed by the corporate media. "Hate speech" which is anything offensive to "protected classes" or fails to be sufficently against unprotected classes? Being rude?

    I saw this movie before. The only way to win the censorship game as a company is to not play, unless your goal is to use your corporation to push an

  • to put in for some extra big censorship?
    Germany on history, politics and art.
    Spain on Catalonia.
    France on all funny political cartoons.
    China on cartoon bears, Taiwan the real China, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, the history of the Communist party, news from the Hong Kong protests.
    Argentina on the Falkland Islands.
    NATO and NGO's on what news is allowed.
    The EU on the results of illegal immigration.
    Cults on their teachings.
    Faith groups.
    Experts on a lot of other medical issues.
    Health experts.
    A

    • That's quite the list but nothing is comparable to clamping down on anti-vaxxers. This isn't the equivalent to censorship drives based on "fake news" or "conspiracy theories" on issues that are neither. Like the Syria gas attacks being false flags or the Russians being behind every bad thing that happens in the world, including your dog pooping in the hallway.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        Re "equivalent to censorship"
        Good to know full censorship can be done in so many different ways when needed :)

  • Now that Mailchimp is screening content for me I will hold them liable if I have any problems with other organizations that use their service.

    This is so much better for consumers than when they acted as a common carrier!

  • My question is, are people really getting these diseases or is it fake news to cause people to fear and flock towards vaccines? Not only that but to encourage and lobby for laws to be put in place to remove your right over your own body. If you want to legally murder someone the easiest way is via vaccine. (Vaccine Manufactures are not held liable if your injured or killed by a vaccine) If you go to the CDC site there is far more of an epidemic being caused by the flu and yet every year we hear the vacc

    • If you want to legally murder someone the easiest way is via vaccine. (Vaccine Manufactures are not held liable if your injured or killed by a vaccine)

      That's not easy.

      My question is, are people really getting these diseases

      Yes. The answer is yes.

    • ,em>My question is, are people really getting these diseases

      Yes they really are.

      or is it fake news to cause people to fear and flock towards vaccines?

      No you're only saying that because you are the most colossal shithead on this thread which given the incredibly high bar for shitheaddery is an impressive feat.

      Not only that but to encourage and lobby for laws to be put in place to remove your right over your own body

      As the adage goes your right to swing your fists ends at my nose. You want the right to r

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )

      are people really getting these diseases

      5,200 people in ICE custody quarantined for exposure to mumps or chicken pox [cnn.com]

      And there have been measles outbreaks in the past few months, some of which were people from first-world countries visiting third-world countries without proper vaccinations, then spreading measles after they returned.

  • I don't care what it is that is said or opined about, but it IS ALWAYS dangerous to block free speech.

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