Silencing Unpopular Thought with Swarm Complaints
This story has been developing. It started with a popular (70k member) Facebook site called We Love GMOs and Vaccines . The site is run by Stephan Niedenbach and runs into the burning building of science ignorance. While many of us find a softer, non-provocative touch as a way to expose the masses to science, WLGMOV pushes buttons, piles on some snark, and also shares information that is consistent with the scientific literature. Over the last month there have been coordinated efforts to foment action against the site. A number of prominent social media sites provided step-by-step instructions on how to register a Facebook complaint so that the page would be withdrawn. The results look like this: Gloating about interruption of free speech. Smooth move, Holly Moses. I'd never do that to you here. The WLGMOV site is down permanently, and Stephan is banned for 30 days. Here is the problem, and we see it again and again in non-scientific activist movemen