While many rightly cheered the rise of the internet in the 90’s, seeing it as the herald of the end of the one-viewpoint corporate news of the 20th century, ‘Big Media’ has returned in a big way to the internet itself. The “internet ghettos”, as Matt Drudge aptly christened the gargantuan digital empires of Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, YouTube, Instagram, Microsoft, and Google, have roped most people in, and, having done that, can now funnel whichever viewpoint it desires to its users. And these companies aren’t private in the least, but up to their necks in government contracts, willingly doing the bidding of the government lest those contracts and favors dry up. Amazon, another digital behemoth, is in the final stages of sealing the deal on a $10-billion ‘JEDI’ cloud contract with the Pentagon, making the federal government its number one customer. And let’s not forget Microsoft, who is a shoo-in for an $8 billion contract with the Department of Defense. The 20th century gatekeepers of acceptable opinion have been reincarnated in the form of these internet giants, and they are seeking to rein in the miracle of the internet, and “de-platform” anyone with opinions they happen to disagree with. One such viewpoint is that of vaccine skepticism, which has found a thriving home on social media. Families with vaccine-injured members can network, organize, share research, and educate themselves on the subject. They are very persuasive, and, in response, the government-protected Gargantuas of the web have begun a slow purge. Pinterest has censored vaccine-skeptical content, Amazon has removed vaccine-skeptical documentaries from Prime, and now Facebook will almost certainly be the next internet giant to succumb to the pressure to censor the growing, organized movement of concerned citizens over the current vaccine policy. What are they afraid of? Well, they’re afraid of the persuasiveness of the vaccine skeptics. They’re afraid of people like Del Bigtree, producer of Vaxxed, host of the weekly podcast The High Wire, and founder of the Informed Consent Action Network. For an example of why they wish to de-platform people like Bigtree, listen to his comments at the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices meeting on February 27th of this year:
