Thursday, March 28, 2024

GET OUR FREE E-NEWSLETTER

“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”

— William Wilberforce

Search

When Even The New York Times Doesn’t Pass Facebook Muster

New York Times paper ship

Opinion | If you’re on Facebook, by now you probably know that it has long ceased to be a social media platform where you can post freely without the threat of censorship. This is particularly true if you post something related to vaccines and vaccine policy or law that may not conform 100 percent to mainstream medicine views and politically correct agendas. Anything you post that Facebook’s invisible team of “fact checkers” deem to be inaccurate or dangerous is open to frank censorship.

Alternatively, it may be something the Facebook police merely believe could bruise the sensitivities of those owning, operating and regulating content on the largest social media platform on the Internet (2.45 billion users).1

You never know what the Facebook police might find offensive, so I’ve made it a point to be careful about what I post to guard against my Facebook account being suspended or eliminated altogether. You cannot imagine how many people have said to me, “I’m in Facebook prison right now” or “Yeah, my Facebook page got deleted.”

I have been extra careful about what I post to Facebook since Dec. 3, 2020 when the social media giant announced that it would start more strictly enforcing removal of information that it judges to be “misinformation” about COVID-19 vaccines.2 3 4 In a blog post by Facebook’s Head of Health Kang-Xing Jin titled “Removing False Claims About COVID-19 Vaccines,” Jin wrote:

Given the recent news that COVID-19 vaccines will soon be rolling out around the world, over the coming weeks we will start removing false claims about these vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts on Facebook and Instagram. This is another way that we are applying our policy to remove misinformation about the virus that could lead to imminent physical harm. This could include false claims about the safety, efficacy, ingredients or side effects of the vaccines.4

Jin added, “We will also remove conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines that we know today are false: like specific populations are being used without their consent to test the vaccine’s safety.”4

Fair enough, I thought. I’ll try and stick to the facts and reference medical journal articles and mainline media outlets and avoid focusing on controversial grey areas or posting anything that could even remotely be judged by the Facebook police to be COVID-19 vaccine misinformation not based on verifiable facts.

NY Times Reports on Boston Doctor’s Anaphylactic Reaction to COVID-19 Vaccine

On Christmas day, The New York Times published an article by Katherine J. Wu titled “Boston Doctor Reports Serious Allergic Reaction After Getting Moderna’s Covid Vaccine.” The article was about a physician in Boston, Massachusetts who suffered a severe allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) just minutes after receiving Moderna’s experimental mRNA-1273 for COVID-19 on Dec. 24. The doctor, Hossein Sadrzadeh, is a geriatric oncologist at Boston Medical Center.5

In a statement, the hospital said Dr. Sadrzadeh “felt he was developing an allergic reaction and was allowed to self-administer his personal EpiPen. He was taken to the Emergency Department, evaluated, treated, observed and discharged. He is doing well today.”5

It was reported that Dr. Sadrzadeh had a history of a severe allergy to shellfish but decided to get the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine after a recommendation by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that people with severe allergies or a history of anaphylactic reactions can still get the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.4 The CDC states on its website that, “These persons may still receive mRNA COVID-19 vaccination, but they should be counseled about the unknown risks of developing a severe allergic reaction and balance these risks against the benefits of vaccination.”6

Wu’s article in The New York Times was a simple news account. No editorializing. Nothing but the facts: A doctor was given a COVID-19 vaccine and within minutes suffered an anaphylactic reaction. He felt dizzy and faint, his heart began racing (150 beats per minute), his tongue “prickled and went numb,” he was “drenched in a cold sweat” and his blood pressure “plummeted.”5

Wu wrote, “His immune system, he realized, was in revolt.” She reported that Dr. Sadrzadeh said, “It was the same anaphylactic reaction that I experience with shellfish.”5

Dr. Sadrzadeh was taken to the emergency room, treated, monitored and then sent home.5

That was it. I posted The New York Times article on Facebook and thought nothing more of it. On Dec. 27, I received the following notice from Facebook:

Your post goes against our Community Standards. See options.

Facebook Blocks NY Times Article

So I clicked on See options and it took me to another page showing my post of the article by The New York Times with a message from Facebook saying,”Only you and the group admins can see this post.” My post had apparently reached 529 people before the Facebook police caught up with it and decided to block it.

Full disclosure: This is not the first time something I’ve posted has been blocked by Facebook and it probably won’t be the last, so another block isn’t surprising to me. I was anticipating more aggressive censorship by Facebook on topics related to the pandemic coronavirus since its announcement on Dec. 23. But even I was taken aback by the flagging of the Wu piece. One wonders how far Facebook intends to go to censor factual news and information about SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 vaccines.

What exactly are these so-called “community standards” that Facebook keeps talking about, and how were they formulated? Somehow, you don’t get a sense that the Facebook “community” had much of a say in the censorship process being used by a social media platform that lists its first company principle as:

Give People a Voice—People deserve to be heard and to have a voice—even when that means defending the right of people we disagree with.7


Note: This commentary provides referenced information and perspective on a topic related to vaccine science, policy, law or ethics being discussed in public forums and by U.S. lawmakers.  The websites of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) provide information and perspective of federal agencies responsible for vaccine research, development, regulation and policymaking.

Click here to view References:

11 Responses

  1. I was banned from Facebook in the summer of 2018 for criticizing the flu vaccine. I don’t miss it at all–they did me a favor!

  2. I cannot understand the mindsets of people who even join this Facebook. Far nicer to have a coffee and chat with a TRUE fried, or send an email if they live too far away.

    And that people STILL with all the disgusintg unethical behaviours of the ZUckerbergs, etc., still support such trash and make billions for these leeches in our society.

    They are sociopaths of the first order, and that people can be told and DO what they are told to do, and accept so meekly (ie. do not resign from these so called SOCIAL??? sites, and they have more Education than every before in History.??????????

    I realise that there has been a dumbing down for many years but come on folks =- time to come off your dependency umbilicus

    WAKE UP!!

  3. SO much for Facebook honoring the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

    Re: Facebook’s First Company principle:

    “Give People a Voice—People deserve to be heard and to have a voice—even when that means defending the right of people we disagree with.”

  4. Should someone who has had an allegic creation carry an EPI pen with them when they get the shot -both times?

    1. I would not get any vaccines at all–Covid-19 has not been isolated and cannot be studied–it’s impossible to create an effective vaccine for it.

      These vaccines contain human cancer cells, aborted fetal tissue, mRNA (do you really want your DNA changed?) and plyethelene glycol, what’s in anti-freeze.

      These new vaccines are 0% effective and 100% deadly poison–I’m projecting these will be the worse in history–even worse than the MMR that sent thousands of children into autism.

      https://vactruth.com/2014/11/30/vaccines-made-from-cancer-tumors/

      Covid 19 is not dangerous–worry about the seasonal flu!

      https://off-guardian.org/2020/07/02/no-one-has-died-from-the-coronavirus-president-of-the-bulgarian-pathology-association/

      1. I would not get any vaccines at all–Covid-19 has not been isolated and cannot be studied–it’s impossible to create an effective vaccine for it.

        Hammond walks you through the entire chronology of the isolation. Not, that I would get the shot but let’s not continue to misrepresent info. Hammond is a very good researcher. Multiple links to info in this article.

        No, the CDC Did Not Admit That SARS-CoV-2 Has Not Been Isolated:
        https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2020/12/07/no-the-cdc-did-not-admit-that-sars-cov-2-has-not-been-isolated/

  5. I have never used Facebook. It did not feel right from the word go. Too much information floating out there for it to be considered secure. And everything that has happened since it first came online has proved my point. Over, and over, and over.

  6. Why are people ON Facebook ANYWAY? If you are on it, you are SUPPORTING Mark Zuckerberg and everything you are complaining about!

Leave a Reply to Stephen Billiter Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search in Archive

Search in Site

To search in site, type your keyword and hit enter

Search