A Facebook Group Removed my Vaccine Hesitancy Post as Being "Controversial"

Censorship of inconvenient truths do not make them less valid

I shared my post about vaccine hesitancy among pet owners in a Facebook group called “Parents of Paws (Childless not by choice). In this post I had shared about my experience with my geriatric fur baby after receiving a rabies vaccine.

Read the full post here:

Those who commented on my post shared stories of vaccine injury experienced by their pets and/or mentioned how they would not be giving their pets any more vaccines or getting their new pets vaccinated.

The following day I received a notification that my post had been removed from the group.

When I asked the group moderator why my post had been removed, she said it was because the post was controversial. I asked what about my post was controversial and she replied, the topic of vaccines. I was called an anti-vaxxer and was told the post was conspiratorial. Not only that but the admin said they are making a new rule to deter people in the future from making such posts.

Not only is it demonstrably false that I am an ‘anti-vaxxer’, as Allie got the rabies vaccine and every required vaccine her entire life but it is truly disgusting to marginalize someone in this way. I asked the admin if she wanted to be part of the solution and she ended the conversation by blocking me and removed me from the group. (see conversation below)

I then followed up with the group moderator and asked her if she wants to be part of the solution as well. And she now contends that vaccination of their pet is between a pet parent and their veterinarian. She then blocked me as well. Ironically, she was the one who invited me to join the group initially.

This my friends is a big problem in this country. People can't have a civil conversation without someone getting defensive and becoming nasty. I told the group admin I wasn't debating, just trying to understand her point of view.

How can people make informed choices when they are only getting one side of the story? Censoring the information that is difficult or uncomfortable to hear doesn’t help someone make an informed choice.

When I shared the exchange on my Facebook page a friend commented:

I don’t understand the straight up denial that vaccine injury is a very real thing. That not everyone can have every vaccine, and like many other things in the world, sometimes what has worked can stop working. That be from an ingredient change or the development of an allergy… it’s utterly ridiculous! We accept nut allergies, fish allergies, egg allergies and people who can’t accept vaccines made with eggs. Warning people about the dangers of grain free dog food was appreciated and shared. Warning people about the dangers of certain sweeteners, the same thing. The dangers of a vax? You are the devil incarnate. Why?? I don’t get it.

She makes some valid points.

Most importantly, while the government has colluded with social media to censor dissenting voices, the threat to free expression that is most worrisome doesn’t come from the government. Rather, it comes from the conformity imposed on individuals by society.

John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (1859) is considered to be one of the greatest defenses of free speech and individuality ever written. He says, if one opinion is silenced, then everyone else suffers, in two ways. If the opinion is right, everyone else is deprived of the opportunity of learning the truth. If the opinion is wrong, everyone else loses the chance to see more clearly how true their own views are.