The dangers of censoring anti-vaxxers

Earlier this week, the Labour party wrote to the government urging it to bring forward legislation so that social media companies which fail to ‘stamp out dangerous anti-vaccine content’ can face financial and criminal penalties. ‘The government has a pitiful track record on taking action against online platforms that are facilitating the spread of disinformation,’ said Jo Stevens, Labour’s shadow culture secretary. ‘This is literally a matter of life and death and anyone who is dissuaded from being vaccinated because of this is one person too many.’

My first thought on hearing this was how pitifully out of touch the Labour party is. Does Keir Starmer not realise how zealous social media companies are when it comes to censoring anything that challenges Covid orthodoxy? In the name of protecting the public from ‘disinformation’, YouTube removed a recording of Lionel Shriver reading out one of her anti-lockdown Spectator columns, Twitter blocked an anti-masking tweet from Dr Scott Atlas, a White House Coronavirus Task Force adviser, and Facebook deleted a post by Donald Trump claiming that children were ‘almost immune’ from Covid-19. The danger isn’t that these companies will turn a blind eye to ‘anti-vaccination content’, but that they’ll censor entirely legitimate concerns raised by doctors and scientists. That’s a genuine risk, given that it looks like Covid vaccination will be made mandatory in some countries.

If it were just the Labour party calling for more censorship I wouldn’t be that worried. After all, Labour wants to ban everything, from Tony the Tiger to fast-food restaurants near schools. But a report was issued recently on behalf of the Royal Society and the British Academy calling for the spreading of ‘Covid-19 misinformation’ to be a criminal offence. The report’s author, Professor Melinda Mills, looks at China as a case study in this respect, noting the country’s ‘punishment’ of those who disseminate Covid ‘rumours’.