To:
Mark Zuckerberg 9 Mar 19
Facebook Inc.
1 Hacker Way
Menlo Park
CA 94025 In re: Adam Shiff’s letter of 14 Feb
Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,
Like many, I have read Mr. Schiff’s letter very carefully. There is certainly an agreement with many of his assertions:
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Medically inaccurate vaccine information on many sites
Repetition of false information can be mistaken as accurate
An abundance of false information on both FB and YT
Advertising revenues from purveyors of misleading information
The problem is that the lion’s share of this false information appears on sites that represent the marketing and sales of vaccines – several of which are wholly unsupported by the rule of science.
Many of everyday media’s contentions about the safety and effectiveness of certain vaccines simply do not stand up to the close scrutiny of legitimate medical science. The irony is that the most valid criticism of vaccines today is coming not primarily from the imaginary demographic “Anti-Vaxers” but rather from mainstream medicine, mainstream science, and mainstream law. The compilation of that data – this is my area of expertise, as the author of a textbook, read worldwide in several editions, translated into 5 languages. In no sense an anti-vaccine publication.
It is no secret that the chief advertising constituent of corporate media is the pharmaceutical industry. How long can we watch TV without seeing a drug ad? At $27 B per year (Oliver) we can’t be disingenuous about the choice of what is offered up every day for public consumption. Advocacy media. As the number one lobby in Washington, organized medicine is well aware. Conflicts of interest abound.
Perhaps the most alarming feature of Mr. Shiff’s letter is his rather condescending assumption that you have a responsibility to be enlisted to promote his side of the debate and to delete the other side. No other word for it than censorship.
But here is the danger: once you start down that road, there is no return. As FB begins now to censor vaccine information, you have new masters who won’t settle for blocking only those posts that oppose vaccination. No, they will block anyone who wants to take just a little closer look than the day-to-day slogans about how safe and effective vaccines are .
Like HHS’s admission last July in the New York court – that no vaccines have been tested for human safety since 1986. Are we going to call HHS anti vaxers? The answer is yes, and that information would be erased from everyday information sources.
Or the fact that the majority of recent measles cases since January were vaccinated – forbidden in any mainstream outlet. Or how about the $4B that VAERS has paid out for just 10% of vaccine injuries?
In the Mar 7 Washington Post, your Monika Bickert puts FB on dangerous ground, arbitrarily deciding how much censorship FB will implement. Who will decide which FB groups are to be blocked from adding members? The Post article is a typical example of unqualified journalists using terms they don’t define: vaccine hoaxes, false content, anti-vaccination, etc. By acquiescing to Shiff’s command , FB is blindly accepting corporate media’s definition of these terms. You didn’t have to do that – Congress has no authority over you, or over any public media for that matter.
So after FB expunges anything that opposes the op ed news pieces prepared by pharmaceutical advertisers, what’s next? Forbid open discussion of chemotherapy choices? Or natural cures for diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, digestive disorders, or any of the other epidemics of degenerative disease for which medicine has an abysmal track record? And will FB now submit everything to be approved by their handlers at the pharmaceutical industry? That’s the slippery slope. Social media or Socialist media – your choice.
Many Americans don’t agree with Adam Shiff, many who vaccinate their kids. They would prefer to see FB continue to venerate the principles of the First Amendment, as it always has. Free speech is the lodestar of America. Without it we backslide towards the harshness and barbarity of darker times.
Like all scientific controversies, vaccines is an area that continues to require free and open discussion and inquiry. Scientific issues are never settled once and for all. The hallmark of any true science is to encourage scrutiny, further study, and progress.
Censorship is the opposite – it is always the death of science. Ask Galileo.
So in this instance, which side wants free and open discussion of vaccines, and which side wants to cover up the science of the other side and end all discussion? What are they afraid will be discovered? Which side is generating $50 billion per year globally?
One of Edward L. Bernays’ most avid students was Josef Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of Propaganda, author of the Final Solution.
Goebbels once said: “Youth belongs to us, and we will yield them to no one.”
So whose children are they – the State’s or the parents? FB’s decision about censorship will demonstrate very clearly whether it chooses free speech or the opposite. Your position will be crystal clear to FB users and will announce whether FB can be trusted or has become just another vehicle of corporate media.
The latter choice may be your death knell, because won’t people then be looking for the new FB?
Many Americans saw FB as a magnificent, quantum advance in human communication. You certainly deserve all the success for your creation. It’s not only your child, Mr. Zuckerberg, but your sacred trust.
Very truly yours,
Tim O’Shea
Milpitas, California doc77777@gmail.com sent certified mail
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