But then it will be too late, because everyone supported censoring ideas they simply didn't like being spread.
Then it will be against the law to object to anything that is official censored.
If the anti-vaxxers don't feel that they have a good platform to raise money, they are welcome and encouraged to make their own.
But do you really believe this is the only thing they will censor?
This is a canary dying, it's indicative of the problems that are coming, and it's going to be more and more censorship, until finally you object to something for real.
But because you didn't defend other's speech, there will be nothing left to do.
This is how free societies work. Everyone has the freedom to assemble--and not assemble--with whomever they choose.
We have protected classes for lines one cannot draw. But an essential part of democracy, going back to the Athenians, is the public's freedom to associate--and transact--with people of their choosing, and being able to associate--or not associate--on the basis of political views.
Other businesses censored their products but because it was something the masses didn't want censored, that business was mercilessly attacked.
There are no rules. That’s freedom of assembly.
GoFundMe is free not to do business with anti-vaxxers. You are free not to do business with them for that decision. Everyone decides what matters to them and acts on it to their own accordance. When there is consensus, it cascades and may even prompt the creation of a new protected class.
There are lots of them.
>...it cascades and may even prompt the creation of a new protected class.
Eventually there will be a protected class that you absolutely object to. And then it will be too late to alter the way they are created.
People forming an informal consensus, organizing and getting a bill passed is fundamental to the democratic legislative process.
Anti-vaxxers kill people by reducing herd immunity. I think that's wrong, I wouldn't platform that.
To have the Orwellian nightmare that you're describing, you'd really have to have a governing body performing this, and to have them disallowing you from building your own.
Now, if the credit card processors were blocking anti-vax stuff, I think you'd have a point, but as it stands it seems like you're just falling into a slippery slope that doesn't exist.
The fact that companies don't want that label is evidence that vaccine safety is not being discussed rationally, but with a mob mentality.
This is how I think we end up with 1984, through mobs and irrationality, not thoughtful discussion.
Debating against people with absurd, unproven, and dangerous claims does nothing to help the legitimate sciences, but works depressingly well at lending credibility to the erroneous claims.
If I were to make the claim that "all kale is radioactive" and that "there's a strong link between eating kale and growing tentacles out of your brain" without providing any evidence of this in the academic literature, you almost certainly wouldn't "debate" me on this, and you'd probably make similar points to the ones I'm making. I'd then fire back with "if you even _question_ the radio-kale theory you are a complete nutter". I might even exclaim "see, they won't even debate me on the kale question! They're trying to censor me! ORWELL!!!"
And this will not end well for people, because the government doesn't have to censor any more that loophole has been by-passed.
The problem is when corporations convince the populace to agree to censor information that is damaging to their profits, and we buy it.