http://www.cbc.ca/cp/technology/071204/z120433A.html"YouTube proving fertile ground for anti-vaccination campaigners"
The authors and Whitlock said public health is going to have to come to grips with this medium of information dissemination.
"It spreads. It spreads emotions. It spreads ideas. It spreads methods. It spreads means. It spreads reasons," said Whitlock, a professor with Cornell's Family Life Development Center.
"And we can't ignore ... that it's the dissemination of information, for ill or for good."
Wilson acknowledged that in the past some vaccine advocates didn't like to address the claims of opponents, assuming any discussion of what was seen as views from the fringe was counterproductive. But the Web 2.0 universe requires a new strategy, he suggested.
"In the past that could work, but it's not going to work anymore. You could ignore it and not discuss it and perhaps it would eventually peter out. But now there are ways for people with these viewpoints to communicate with each other," he said.
"These sites are now providing people with a mechanism by which they can bypass the conventional filters and get their messages out. It can be dangerous. The Internet is valueless in that respect."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How far away are we from issues such as anti-vaccination being banned from the internet for being "too dangerous". This could also happen with any "conspiracy theorists" who use the internet as a way to get their ideas out by bypassing the corrupted media.
