As reported on YWN, via what is called a paid advertisement by an organization called C.F.E.A.V.F.O.S. (Committee For Exposing Anti Vaxxers For Our Safety), a suggestion that people planning to attend an anti-vaxx event in Flatbush should dress nicely.
They explain that they will have a paid photographer at the event photographing every person present and they will be publicly shaming them - in their words, they will post all the images on social media. The community needs to know who is not vaccinating their kids, so that they can protect their own children from people who might put them at risk of horrible diseases.
I am not a big fan of the "shaming" trend today. I get the danger the anti-vaxxers pose to so many people, and public debate seem to have only strengthened and legitimized them rather than dissuaded them, but I just don't know if this is the right way to go about it. Also, generally anti-vaxxers are not hiding their opinions so most, if not all, of the people are probably already known to the community and public at large. Shaming them probably won't send them to the clinic to vaccinate their kids because they are generally proud of their stance on this.
So, what say you - is it reasonable and just to shame them in public or is it bullying and inappropriate? Is it fair game because they are putting so many other people at risk or are the statistics still so small that two wrongs do not make a right? Will it even work to make people afraid of this position or will others see how so many "normal" people believe this and suddenly that opinion is even more legitimized than it has been until now? It seems the more this topic gets debated in public, the more support they seem to get.
UPDATE: the event was last night. YWN reports that only 50 people showed up, of the expected and planned for 1300. In addition, [many of] those that did participate walked in with their faces covered. While YWN posts a few pictures of a mostly empty hall, a picture is just a moment in time. Someone else posted a picture on Facebook of a relatively busy, though not full, hall, so I am not sure if it was as empty as YWN says or if it was really much busier with people perhaps coming a little later..
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