Vaccination dangers groups online

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Does the Internet promote or thwart Democracy? « Sohum Parlance

II

By Kirk

Similarly, pseudoscience has found a second home on the

Internet. Banned from the classroom, it’s making a comeback on Facebook

and YouTube. For example, aggressive anti-vaccination communities have

eagerly embraced the Web to spread their antiscientific statements on a

scale that was probably never available to them in the pre-Internet age.

A 2007 study by a group of academics from Canada analyzed all unique

English-language YouTube videos (at that time, all 153 of them) that

contained any messages about human immunization; the researchers found

that a third of them were outright negative about its value and another

fifth were ambiguous, with negative videos usually receiving much higher

ratings by YouTube users. Of the negative videos, almost half

contradicted existing reference standards on immunization (the

anti-vaccination movement is also extremely active in the developing

world; UNICEF reports that its recent awareness-raising campaign ran into

powerful online opposition from vaccination-denialists). In addition to

illustrating the appeal of cyberspace to advocates of pseudoscience, this

case raises an interesting question about whether a technology company

such as YouTube (and ultimately its parent company, Google) should verify

scientific claims made in the videos uploaded to the site; if yes, how

should they go about it? (Google faced a similar set of problems when it

erroneously classified a video documenting prison abuse in Egypt as too

violent, overlooking its social role.) The editorial and fact-checking

layers of traditional media organizations would make it unlikely that

such videos would ever be aired, for there is usually someone on staff to

distinguish facts from opinions; how user-generated sites will cope with

this challenge is not yet clear.

Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Hahnemannian

Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Washington State, USA

Vaccines -

http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm or

http://www.wellwithin1.com/vaccine.htm

Vaccine Dangers, Childhood Disease Classes & Homeopathy

Online/email courses - next classes start December 2 & 3

http://www.wellwithin1.com/vaccineclass.htm or

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