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Comment by benja123 | Hacker News Reader

It is, but I am not sure how you enforce it as it is extremely hard to prove. I think they should be going after the people who have been making posts encouraging this type of behavior.

Unfortunately the anti-vaxxers in Israel are extremely aggressive and they use a lot of fear tactics and deceptive “marketing”. An approximate translation of the largest anti-vaccine group in Israel’s Facebook page title is “Vaccines, an educated choice”.

I do think that more recently the tide has turned against them as Facebook has become much more aggressive in hiding their propaganda.

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I don't think you can reasonably conclude either that a) anti-vaxxer propaganda is effective insofar it attracts statistically significant number of new people under its bannder, or b) that FB blocking their pages effectively reverses the effect of (a).

Personally, I hold the opinion that anti-vaxxers are more of a natural product of their environments than anything else. You can clearly see the distinction along the religious and educational boundaries, for example. Limiting the freedom of speech in attempt to silence them is not going to work, like it's not working in stopping any other kind of speech you don't like. Censorship is dangerous: it alienates people and prevents communication, effectively radicalizing those affected.

Deplatforming has proved very effective, at least in the cases of ISIS[1], and I would argue deplatforming Trump has helped to deescalate tensions to some degree (or at least, given the media something else to talk about than his rants).

Whether it’s the right choice is obviously subject to debate.

[1]: https://twitter.com/AmarAmarasingam/status/13481478677399756...

One giant problem, which you seem to be suffering from, is lumping in radical anti-vaxxers who would willingly waste doses with people that are questioning the safety of the vaccines. These people are looking to have an open discussion on the positives and negatives to getting the vaccine, but instead find themselves the victims of name calling and censorship.

Conflating the vaccine hesitant with the radicals you mention is done on purpose of course, but there’s a real cost. You are alienating and further radicalizing fence sitters. Censorship of open discussion can also be seen as confirming their possible view that vaccine manufacturers are ”hiding something“.

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