In an effort to stop misinformation regarding the much-hyped vaccine for COVID-19, the Labour Party has just asked the Government to introduce emergency legislation that would lead to Social Media firms being fined if they fail to control the spread of “dangerous anti-vaccine content”.
The attempt to silence the anti-vaccine “crazies” will cause more harm than good and will potentially prevent others from speaking out because of fear of being prosecuted. To me this looks like totalitarianism disguised as the common good.
Labour is reacting to the proliferation of anti-vaccination groups on social media, and conspiracy theories such as that vaccine shots carry microchips to track the population, and that vaccination could be used to change our DNA.
The fear is that the public will swallow this nonsense rather than the pills it needs (metaphorically speaking) – once the right FDA-approved vaccine comes to the rescue.
Anti-vaxxers are nothing new. In the 19th Century they tried to persuade us against the ‘unknown’ perils of the Smallpox vaccine. Once again, fear is spreading through society because of ‘the unknown’ and inevitably the anti-vaxxers are gathering momentum.
But crazy conspiracies are different from healthy scepticism, and reasonable suspicion towards profit-hungry pharmaceutical companies. Analysts at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse estimate that this sector will make $10bn a year from coronavirus vaccines.
The truth is there is still a lot of confusion and therefore a lot to question – also on social media.
For example last week’s Pfizer and BioNTech statement claimed that their vaccine could prevent more than 90% of people from catching the deadly virus, whereas White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, though broadly positive about the news, said that it’s more likely that the vaccine will stop the infection from making us ill, rather than prevent transmission.
So given the uncertainties it’s no wonder that people are already taking to social media to raise their concerns about the vaccine, and to sometime condemn vaccines altogether.
And given the failure of the Johnson government, and the UK’s high death rate, why would anyone trust UK politicians of any persuasion to monitor what we can and cannot say?
First Tory politicians make decisions that put us at risk, and then their Labour counterparts try to censor us – at the time when we need to talk to each other more than ever. A conspiracy theorist might think they don’t want us to know something.
Attempts to curb free speech are only likely to make people more suspicious, for example about the Brazilain doctor who died while involved in a trial for a vaccine developed by AstraZeneca in Oxford. The BBC reports that he never took the vaccine, but if Starmer’s call to silence the anti-vaxxers is accepted, imagine what will be made of that story then?
All of a sudden the “crazies” won’t appear that crazy after all.
