Online Censorship of Health Information Is Authoritarianism
/By A. Rahman Ford, PNN columnist
Critics of stem cell therapy have taken their censorship campaign to another frightening and paternalistic step up the authoritarian ladder. Not only does it threaten freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of health, but now it’s targeting poor people.
The campaign to stop people from accessing stem cell therapy (SCT) has been building for some time. First there was fearmongering to scare patients away from SCT, followed by a push to have regulatory agencies increase enforcement. Then came a call for social media platforms like YouTube to censor patient testimonials about the benefits of SCT.
Now, in a disturbing turn, critics are pressuring fundraising platforms like GoFundMe to purge campaigns that seek to raise funds for SCT.
In a recent op/ed in the BBC’s Future, London-based neurologist Dr. Jules Montague argues that crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe need to crackdown on patients seeking to raise money for stem cell treatments. Montague says their testimonials omit the “unfounded hype” and potential risks associated with SCT. These “bad actors,” according to Montague, should be banned to “halt the spread of misinformation.”
To propose that crowdfunding sites be tasked with choosing winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas, and to impose quasi-criminal sanctions on poor patients is to enter a decidedly dictatorial dimension. “Bad actor” is a legal term of art, and should be left to the jurisdiction of a court of law or other legislatively-authorized tribunal. That’s how things work in a democracy.
On the other hand, authoritarian regimes censor whatever speech they see fit, arbitrarily and without explanation. As it pertains to crowdfunding sites, what we absolutely do not need is unelected and unappointed “experts’” selling misplaced fears.
The question that should be asked is why do the SCT critics fear the agency of the people? Is the notion that people can make their own medical decisions – and accept the risks of those decisions – without “expert” stewardship, consultation or approval such a terrifying prospect?
Ultimately, this “purge and censor” line of argument represents a slippery slope that is distinctly anti-democratic. And at the bottom of the slope, are piled the bodies of the sick, whose desperation is fueled by the abject failures of mainstream medicine.
Equally disturbing is the fact that stem cell censorship on fundraising platforms would be a clear and unmistakable attack on the poor. Poor people are the ones who need to raise money, not the wealthy. The average person doesn’t have the finances of a star athlete like Max Scherzer or a celebrity actress like Selma Blair to get stem cell treatment. Instead, they have to rely on the generosity of others, a generosity that crowdfunding sites facilitate. To censor SCT fundraising is to not only censor a voice, but a livelihood, and maybe even a life itself. Poor people should not be punished for being poor.
Does Dr. Montague really expect GoFundMe and other sites to establish their own internal ethics boards and become the online sentinels of poor people’s health? There is no defensible or rational justification for preventing chronically ill poor people from raising the money they need to save their own lives.
Online Censorship Increasing
Unfortunately, online censorship of alternative health information is not new. In fact, it’s increasing. Facebook recently deleted dozens of alternative health pages without any notice or explanation. Some, such as Natural Cures Not Medicine and Just Natural Medicine, had millions of followers.
GreenMedInfo was kicked off Pinterest for violating its “misinformation policy” which bans “false cures” for chronic illnesses. And who helps Pinterest determine what health advice is false?
“We rely on information from nationally and internationally recognized institutions, including the CDC and WHO, to help us determine if content violates these guidelines,” Pinterest explained in an email.
Recent changes to Google’s Broad Core Algorithms have also suppressed search results for alternative medical information. As a consequence, hundreds of health websites have experienced drastic drops in traffic, including Pain News Network. One website, owned by alternative health advocate Dr. Joseph Mercola, lost about 99% of its traffic.
“Big Tech has joined the movement, bringing in a global concentration of wealth to eliminate competition and critical voices,” Mercola warned. “This year, we’ve seen an unprecedented push to implement censorship across all online platforms, making it increasingly difficult to obtain and share crucial information about health topics.”
“We’ve seen an unprecedented push to implement censorship across all online platforms, making it increasingly difficult to obtain and share crucial information about health topics.”
Even Wikipedia, which relies on open source editing for its content, has succumbed to the “deletionism” of alternative health information.
“We believe that organised skeptic groups are actively targeting Wikipedia articles that promote natural, non-drug therapies with which they disagree,” says the Alliance for Natural Health. “The new trick of these editors is to rewrite or entirely remove pertinent information from such articles or, worse still, delete entire articles altogether.”
It now appears that stem cell therapy is the next hooded subject to be escorted into the Star Chamber of deletionism. The call for fundraising censorship is distinctly ant-human, and denies the most essential and primordial of human instincts – to assist a fellow human being in their time of need.
It is not the place of GoFundMe or any other fundraising site to police people’s medical choices. GoFundMe, your core principles are turning “compassion into action” and the sharing of people’s stories “far and wide.” Please do not capitulate to the SCT bullies.
A. Rahman Ford, PhD, is a lawyer and research professional. He is a graduate of Rutgers University and the Howard University School of Law, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Howard Law Journal. He earned his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania.
Rahman lives with chronic inflammation in his digestive tract and is unable to eat solid food. He has received stem cell treatment in China.
The information in this column should not be considered as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only and represent the author’s opinions alone. It does not inherently express or reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of Pain News Network.
