When the naturopath Elias Kass testified before a Washington state senate committee on 20 February with a baby on his chest and a pacifier in his hand, he knew that his arguments would be unpopular with the anti-vaccine activists in the room. Amid a measles outbreak that has infected 66 people so far, legislators were considering a bill to eliminate personal and philosophical exemptions for childhood vaccinations, and Kass was one of several practitioners to speak in support of the measure.
Kass faced some anger in the hallway after the hearing, he said, with one person calling him “a disgusting liar”. But it wasn’t until several hours later that “the shit hit the fan”. That’s when Kass realized that his Facebook page was being flooded with one-star reviews calling him everything from a “disgrace” and a “pedophile” to a “Nazi pharma shill” and “scumbag shilling for infanticide”. Kass disabled the Yelp-like reviews feature on the page, but that didn’t stop the onslaught, which moved into the page’s comments and across the ecosystem of anti-vaxx Facebook pages and groups. By Monday, five days after his brief testimony, he had compiled a photo gallery with hundreds of screenshots of abusive comments.
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Source: Anti-vaxx ‘mobs’: doctors face harassment campaigns on Facebook | Technology | The Guardian