Monday I updated you with the latest and greatest in classy schemes brought to you by the very good people over at Age of Autism.
Long story short, AoA was sponsoring some BS anti-flu shot ads to run at AMC theaters over Thanksgiving weekend. You guys rocked the shit out of slacktivism and, within hours, AMC agreed to never run the ads.
And the world was good. Everyone ate turkey. I ran a bunch of 5Ks. We went to parties. We went to work. And life went on.
Until Sunday.
Sunday morning, AoA got vindictive and posted some not-so-nice stuff about me on their Facebok page. That was no surprise. The surprise came when my daughter, 6-month-old Delaney, was displayed for mockery and abuse. AoA says that it was “news” and their readers deserved to know who I was…but that they didn’t have 40 seconds to spend Googling my name to find a picture of me that didn’t include either of my children.
It’s news that I have a face, apparently. AoA got the scoop!
So I flagged the post for removal. And so did the rest of the Skepchicks. And so did a bunch of you.
But Facebook hasn’t removed it.
Since posting the photo, commenters have posted my full name and my workplace, and some have attempted to friend me on FB. (I can only speculate that this is an attempt to dig for more personal information.)
Brie Cadman of Change.org has written and article about the debacle and put together a petition to ask Facebook, again, to remove the photo of Delaney and me along with their charming displays of compassion and humanity.
Since you people are the Greatest Slacktivists EVER (Guinness is certifying this right now!) I know you can take a few minutes to go over and sign this petition.
Little Delaney Bug deserves better than this; I mean really, everyone deserves better than this.
And, once you’ve finished signing the petition, you can head over to the new Facebook group, Friends of Elyse, which was put together by Skepchick reader James Fox, for people to show their support for me in light of this new smear campaign.
It’s a nice place on the internet where people can talk about how they love their kids so much they vaccinate them… or they hate germy kids and so they’re glad people vaccinate them… or they have mercury fetishes, so they get flu shots like crazy. Which is weird, because…. oh, I’m not going to get into it; just stop hogging all the vaccines. People need them to save lives and shit.
But first, sign the petition.
Lastly, thank you everyone for your amazing outpouring of support and encouragement. You guys make saving the world so worth it.
***Update: The post, my picture and all the disgusting comments have been removed from Age of Autism’s Facebook page. Thank you everyone for your help! ***
Am I officially a minion now? When do I get tasked to go rough someone up?
@infinitemonkey: Get in line, Monkeyboy! Me first!
Signed it a few minutes ago. Proudly.
@infinitemonkey: You aren’t a Minion® already? You’ve been commenting here a while longer than I have. You should already be up to Henchman® by now.
@infinitemonkey:
You’re a minion already?! You lucky lucky bastard. My dream is to be allowed to be a minion. Just for a day. They must think the sun shines out of your …
Petition Signed.
Mike.
Can’t you all just be happy being soldiers? I like to touch my Privates.
Signed.
Also, I really love how they’re phrasing it like it’s a copyright issue. Why do so many ignorant people think copyright ends if you post something online? Cook’s Source, anyone?
FB is built on Cassandra, iirc…entry >>retrieval>> deletion paradigm, iirc. Give it a bit for all the nodes to agree.
Or…I could be completely full of it. Too much info in too many areas to keep track of. :(
Good job on AMC, I’ll poke ’em (subtly) for yah. ;)
Who has two thumbs and works at change.org? This guy!
I’m going to see if we can promote this to a prominent place on the site (depending on our editorial review).
@kylev:
Awesome!
Thanks, Private! I owe you extra touches… erm… hugs.
@Elyse: I see what u did thar.
Petition happily signed. All while boozin it up on my couch at home. I can totally get behind this kind of activismthatswhatshesaid!
Elyse Elyse She’s Our Chick
The least we can do is double click! ;-)
I signed. My kids are vaccinated, I was vaccinated, my siblings were vaccinated.
Elyse, how does one get promoted from private to corporal in this outfit? My wife is a bit on the jealous side at times…
@should be working:
Give me a note from your wife and I’ll transfer you to the Minion department. The best I can do there is come up with a play on words involving Funyons.
“The surprise came when my daughter, 6-month-old Delaney, was displayed for mockery and abuse.”
Okay. I was totally on your side until, in a blog post seems to hint that you feel threatened by lunatics identifying your daughter through photos posted on the internet…
You posted a photo of your child…
… on the internet.
If you seriously feel like they’re a danger to your child… WTF?
@delphi_ote:
Ummmm…. so what you’re saying is that since they put my daughter up for ridicule, wishing harm upon her, and threatening me, you’re no longer taking sides because I put a picture up of the girl they’re bullying?
Yeah…. I wouldn’t want to do something like put a human face on this.
Don’t worry, I won’t let Delaney roam the streets alone for the next few months.
Christ. These people seem to have no idea what freedom of choice actually is despite the fact that they are obsessed with it.
Nobody is trying to force anyone to do anything. The only thing that the pro-vaccine, skeptic side is trying to do is provide a counter argument and expose them for what they are. If that results in their message becoming unpalatable to many and losing support then good, but that’s not oppression.
Persuading someone is not the same as forcing them.
Unfortunately for them, freedom of expression tends to be a big problem for those who don’t have the facts on their side.
@Elyse
Transparency is transparency…I’ve tried explaining this to friends of mine (re: why I don’t FB anymore), that it doesn’t matter what you meant, but what happens with the data.
Don’t get me wrong, I applaud your actions.
Signed and tweeted! Goooooo team!
Signed the petition, tweeted it and shared it on facebook.
@Elyse: The Reject Minion Army of Dorkosphere is at your service! And petition signed.
@delphi_ote: “Okay. I was totally on your side until, in a blog post seems to hint that you feel threatened by lunatics identifying your daughter through photos posted on the internet…
You posted a photo of your child…
… on the internet.
If you seriously feel like they’re a danger to your child… WTF?”
I completely disagree with delphi_ote.
Why can’t you see the difference between having a picture of your kid on your own page, and the same pic being used as part of a violent threatening smear campaign?
Elyse and her family deserve all the support we can give them, NOW!
Signed! Good luck with everything and know that we all love you for fighting the good fight, Elyse.
@James Fox: LMAO. I saw that on the original fb post *eyeroll*
Delurking to say: if it hadn’t been for your constant reminders about vaccination and whatnot, I would have forgotten (for the umpteenth time) to go in and get the Tdap. So, for whatever it’s worth, you’re doing good.
Keep up the good work, and don’t let the bastards get to you, otherwise, they’ve won. And that would be no good.
Delurking to say: if it hadn’t been for your constant reminders about vaccination and whatnot, I would have forgotten (for the umpteenth time) to go in and get the Tdap. So, for whatever it’s worth, you’re doing good.
Keep up the good work, and don’t let the bastards get to you, otherwise, they’ve won. And that would be no good.
I agree with @delphi_ot. I don’t think it’s bad that you’re putting a face on the situation, and I agree that they shouldn’t be using your picture or issuing threats and giving out personal information. I think facebook should take it down.
But I do think putting up a pic of your kid on this story is a bit odd due to the stance on privacy you seem to take.
I guess my question is, if AoA linked to this story the way facebook links to websites, they could easily select the pic for the preview picture of the story, and how would you feel about that?
If the goal is protection, I think it was a mistake to post the pic of your child.
All that said, I still support your efforts, and even though I don’t usually sign online petitions because they’re generally worthless and ignored, I’ll sign this one since it’s dealing with an online issue.