Crowdfunding platform GoFundMe’s decision to ban anti-vaxxers is discriminatory and hypocritical, media and legal analyst Lionel tells RT, even if the selective censorship by a non-governmental body is –strictly speaking– legal.
“Is this an opinion, and is this a discussion point that should be protected? And if so, by whom?” Lionel asks rhetorically, explaining that, while as a private company GoFundMe has a right to kick anti-vaxxers off its platform, if a competing fundraising site tried to ban a more socially-acceptable group – an LGBT activist organization, say, or a pro-choice campaign – “they’d be in the streets and screaming and yelling!”
“We understand that those are the rules. But why is it that we cannot discuss this?” he asks, interrogating the American Medical Association’s warning to tech companies that they have a “responsibility” to “curb anti-vax propaganda.” Why, he wonders, isn’t the doctors’ organization demanding a crackdown on vaping, or chocolate bars, or other heavily-promoted items that do much more damage to Americans’ health than failure to vaccinate?