Pinterest Removes Anti-Vaccine & Vaccine Awareness Boards
Pinterest, a web and mobile social media platform that offers users an outlet to “pin” a variety of image and video based content to boards (collection of pins), has come under fire for removing users’ boards on vaccine injury, anti-vaccine, and vaccine risk awareness content. As of September 2017, Pinterest has an estimated 200 million monthly active users, about 60% are women. Pinterest is a privately held company owned by three partners, one of which, the founder and CEO, Ben Silbermann, attended Yale and studied medicine and political science.
Does ownership and funding influence allowable content on Pinterest? What about free speech and our constitutional rights? Does free speech and freedom of expression apply to a privately owned company that has their own agenda, guidelines, and community standards?
Pinterest claimed the boards in question promoted “self-harm” as the reason they were removed due to violation of their community standards in the area of safety. “We remove anything that promotes self-harm, like self mutilation, eating disorders, or drug abuse.”
Interestingly, there is a plethora of research that indicate vaccines cause an array of health issues, including a contributing factor in anorexia as the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry in 2017 reports. “Patients diagnosed as having neuropsychiatric disorders such as “obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), anorexia nervosa (AN), anxiety disorder, chronic tic disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), major depressive disorder, and bipolar disorder” were more likely to have received vaccinations three months prior to their diagnoses.”
Clearly stated in Pinterest’s Community Guidelines, they further explain: “We remove any content that promotes harmful behavior, or anything that encourages or suggests self-harm. We’ll take action on misinformation that has immediate and detrimental effects on a pinner’s health or on public safety – like promotion of false cures for terminal or chronic illnesses and anti-vaccination advice.” (This last line appears to have been recently added and was also not included in the emails sent to users informing them why their boards were deleted.) However, Pinterest freely allows pharmaceutical advertising and pro-vaccination content throughout their boards, so they’re a bit misled on what constitutes “false cures” and what anti-vaccination advice, health freedom education, the sharing of vaccine injury and death stories, what informed consent encompasses, and why this health advocacy movement is exponentially growing.
The testimonials featured below are from users who Pinterest censored and removed their boards. We are unaware if someone reported their boards or if Pinterest is aggressively combing their site and removing content based on their recently updated community standards policy. As of late, there are an abundance of Pinterest boards that still exist that do include vaccine risk, injury, educational, and awareness information such as, Don’t Harm Yourself Vaccine Truth, Antivaxxx, Vaccine Health, Vaccine Research, Vaxx Education, Knowledge vs. Vaccination, and thousands more. My general search of “vaccination” on Pinterest actually nets mostly anti-vaccine content and infographics. Even a journal study found that 75% of vaccine information on Pinterest was negative! Having an open forum where health information can be discussed without censorship is critical! Many of the censored Pinterest users are also Stop Mandatory Vaccination group members.
Wendy Brady Message From Pinterest
Windy Lemere Brady: “In August of this year, 2018, I was notified by the Pinterest website via email. The email was to inform me that my board containing countless hours of research regarding vaccine safety had been removed from the website. The reason given by the Pinterest team was that they found my board to go against their policies of self harm. Self harm being explained as suicide and eating disorders. I questioned this action and attempted to contact Pinterest by email and phone about their decision to remove my board. I have not yet heard back from the company. This is censorship.
The information I collected on vaccines, the history of, scientific studies and charts, interviews and abstracts from a wide range of medical personal and scientists, beginning from the first vaccine to market. Stories from parents of children harmed or killed by an adverse vaccine reaction. None of this information contained anything that could of possibly of been considered self harm, suicide or an eating disorder. I find this censorship by Pinterest highly disturbing. I have not knowingly been censored online other than Pinterest. In everyday life, yes, I have been censored for many years. My own mother and I no longer have a relationship because she refuses to listen or even entertain the fact that vaccines are like any other medical procedure or medication, they all have side effects. To assume differently is absurd.
On Pinterest, I was gathering information to help educate others and continue to learn more myself. I found that gathering relevant info was a hard process and was attempting to make it very easy for others to access that info. My board was named Vaccine Information and I would tell many about the board, especially those just starting their own search on the adverse side effects of vaccines. I believe that my grandmother died as a direct result of the flu vaccine 15 years ago. I believe that I, myself, have the ongoing ailments that began as a child as a direct vaccine injury. My four children all have some form of illness that will be life long. My 12 year old having the most severe. He was diagnosed with Asperger’s a few years ago. My grandson suffered from many mild adverse effects the first few months of life and has suffered intussusception.
I am very conscience of healthy eating and living and I avoid as many chemicals as I can in my household. My children have grown up this way. I do not believe their ailments are diet or lifestyle related.
I have worked in a cancer research center and witnessed the black listing of medical journals that contained articles about vaccine information which did not support vaccine themselves. Finding this very disturbing, I questioned the action. Immediately I was transferred to another department. In the new department I was told by my direct boss that I should look into vaccines. I was a new mother at the time. What he said sadly didn’t sink in until much later. Three of my four kids are fully vaccinated. My youngest received a few vaccines. Most of what I know now has been learned in the last nine years. Although I began my search nearly 23 years ago.
The general public deserves to know any real risk from any medication or medical procedure imposed on themselves, their children or another loved one. I have discontinued use of Pinterest. I will no longer support this site or its affiliates.”
Tami Hishke Message From Pinterest
Tami Hishke: “I have been an avid Pinterest user and lover for about three years. I had many boards consisting of many different subjects like recipes, travel, cancer, home improvement, government corruption, cannabis, and my Vaccine Truths board which was all about vaccine information and dangers, studies, articles, and stories of vaccine injuries. When I received this email from Pinterest I was shocked and more than a little angry. It was the only board they removed. I appealed their censorship and never received a reply. I deleted my entire Pinterest account because I absolutely will not support censorship. To say vaccine education is “self harm” is ridiculous. It’s called informed consent.”
Nancy Grubbs: “We are an adoptive family with four children who all ended up with special needs, unknown at the time of adoption. Our first child was 5.5 weeks old when we received him and followed quickly by two more very young children within six months.
Our son who is the most severe, was vaccine-injured, is in diapers, non-verbal, and functionally two years of age, yet chronologically 24 years old. That was stated on my Pinterest board and you can see a representation in the images below. Not only is Pinterest discriminating against an opinion, but the medical reality that many, many families with vaccine-injured children are trying to help others to see and avoid in their own families. The information is science-based overall and available in a variety of forums for anyone to see. However, as we know, it is suppressed and the average person has to search to even know it exists, but first, must be introduced in some way to the idea. That is why Pinterest boards are so great. They are bite-sized and interest inducing; one can simply follow the link the get the data of the information that is being alluded to in the pin.
I created a Vaccine Injury board on Pinterest and found there was a very active Vaccine Education movement. I quickly amassed over 3,000 pieces of data involving vaccine injury issues and others were using my “pins” for their own boards, knowledge, etc. I had tons of research documentation, hundreds of videos of parents of vaccine-injured and killed children telling their stories, worldwide data on vaccine-injury, lawsuit information, vaccine ingredient and insert information stating vaccines cause autism and loads of other disorders and diseases – (yes, it’s listed on the insert!). A treasure trove of information going back 100 years.
Each day I would gather more data and people would add it to their own boards on vaccine education – which is an extensive and quickly growing network on Pinterest. Each day Pinterest would tally how many people saved your pins and there were many saves, more daily as new people began building their own boards. I would typically choose to follow those with over 200 or 300 pins to gain more material to pull from and I could see those who were saving were filling their boards quickly. Lots of new boards under many names, some inclusive of the word “vaccines” while others might use “health, “baby” or more political jargon, things like “Wake Up! If you type in the words “vaccine” for a search, you will find many boards, as well as typing in “anti-vaccination.” The site would let you search it in many ways for anti-vax issues so it wasn’t a deep, dark secret.
Pinterest took the board down and deleted it because it was against their policy of “self harm” which is: “We remove anything that promotes self-harm, like self mutilation, eating disorders or drug abuse.” Not even close. We are being shut down. I am nobody. Just a mom with a kid whose brain was destroyed by vaccines. Aluminum in the shots to be exact. Toxic levels. I have proof as do millions of other parents of vaccine injured children. They deleted me. I knew it was just a matter of time…
Obviously this “self harm” reason for removing my boards does not fit, but this is what they used to SILENCE my medical questioning of vaccine safety. There are millions of parents with vaccine injured children who are gaining a voice amidst their unbelievable parenting challenges, or worse, after burying their children. They deserve a platform as do the doctors, nurses, scientists, and all others who are voicing their concern over the loss of an entire generation of healthy children.
I sent this info about being censored in an email out to friends, family, and a few notables that I happened to have in my contacts, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, Brian Hooker, and a few sites — Stop Mandatory Vaccination for instance. Since most everyone I sent it to is very vax skeptical that our son or anyone’s child is affected, I thought it would be an opportunity to tie in the vaccine issues with the censorship that is prevalent today. Not being able to discuss medical issues in the public square is a far cry from Infowars or any number of individuals or sites that are being currently censored. There are several relatively innocuous sites that I follow on Youtube that are being harassed and their revenue is affected by social media censorship pursuits. One is about Earthquake Predictions (Dutchsinse) and another, Bombard’s Body Language.
Previously, I have not been censored. I gave social media all up, due to my concerns with FaceBook years ago. I had a Moms of Multiple Special Needs page in the long-lived 24 year hope that I would find at least one other person on the planet to talk to that had a similar situation. I know they are out there, have been trying to find them, and finally gave up. FaceBook was the last attempt. Four adopted children all ending up having special needs, homeschooling, Faith, over 30 diagnoses’, and on were too much of an anomaly.
Nancy Grubbs Message From Pinterest
The only reason I took a stab at Pinterest was as we were doing our 11-month renovation this year and in looking for ideas, etc., I ran across the vaccination issues. I was just finishing 20 years of homeschooling and knew I was being called into this fight, but couldn’t do much yet…so while I was waiting, this provided an avenue to learn and spread a little info around. I’m taking Sherri Tenpenny’s Vaccine Bootcamp program and my end goal is to get to writing. I intend to approach it from a spiritual side for those of faith who don’t realize that what we are partaking in is not a far cry from abortion in its big picture.”
Carmen Anderson: “I check my Pinterest account every day. I have enjoyed Pinterest and found a lot of interesting and helpful info. As we all know, finding info and creating boards can be time consuming especially if it’s a subject you care about. This was the case with my board that magically disappeared. Just the day before I found it missing, I was pinning items to that board. The board name was Anti-Vaxx/Anti-GMO. Not only did I have vaccine info, I also had tons of info about GMO’s. I didn’t receive an email saying my board was deleted! I emailed Pinterest, but got no response! I quickly made a new board called Knowledge vs. Vaccination. A person from the Stop Mandatory Vaccination group said that they may be deleting boards with the titles “anti” in them. When I looked at the FAQ’s on their website it says sometimes people “accidentally” delete a board (yeah right)…would have loved it if there was a warning to maybe change the title if it was too “offensive”. I would have gladly done so. I had over 500 pins on that board.
Needless to say I was burning mad. Pinterest users should have every right to pin and title whatever they please! If I found the actual pin on their site, I should be able to create a board and title it whatever I want. Pinterest is basically a solo activity unlike FaceBook. Why should anyone care what I title my board? Censorship at it’s finest, especially on important topics that people should be learning about. I would like to know who owns Pinterest and who is behind the cash flow to their company. That might explain a lot!”
Anyone that dares to question the narrative or challenge the pushed agenda faces the threat of censorship and the act of being silenced. We have slid off the cliff from the slippery slope of not supporting free speech into the censorship danger zone. Dare we advocate for truth and health freedom. We have reached a Fascist state that lacks free speech and feeds the oppression of truth. Many activists and concerned citizens are already taking action and deleting their Pinterest and other social media accounts and claim this is “a war on health.”
After several attempts at calling the numbers listed for Pinterest to only be directed to non working numbers, I messaged Pinterest to point out their blatant censorship and express my grave concern — with no response.
UPDATE: Pinterest finally responded to my complaint calling them out on their blatant censorship:
What to do?
Ways you can use activism to express your outrage and rise up for your beliefs: Boycott Pinterest and every company it owns, write to and call Pinterest’s headquarters, appeal the violation of terms and submit a complaint, delete your Pinterest account, save your content elsewhere, discover new social media sites, participate in other info sharing outlets, discover uncensored platforms, and seek alternative search engines and web browsers (Bitchute, Medel.la, Patreon, Steemit, Spokehub, Minds, real.video, MeWe, Gab.ai, DuckDuckGo, Brave, etc.). Call out and do not support companies that censor on social media or anywhere else! Seek out additional resources and spread vaccine risk awareness and health education in other ways!
