On June 7 Mailchimp announced it had already shut down a number of accounts for “anti-vaccination content.” Mailchimp also announced it was adding the ‘anti-vaccination’ category to its routine searches for prohibited content. Nowhere on Mailchimp’s website did it elaborate what constituted ‘anti-vaccination’ content. Reporting on the move, CNBC writes “The company began quietly enforcing this decision last week” yet no discussion or reasoning was given as to why the enforcement needed to be done quietly.

Facebook reports revealed that Mailchimp’s account cancellations began before they released their public statement. The pre-emptive “quiet” move resulted in customers locked out of accounts and unable to retrieve their data without warning or a clear remedy. Mailchimp did not return a request asking what prompted them to start their censorship and what constituted ‘anti-vaccination’ content on their platform.

Despite there being several meaningful, scientific reasons to pose questions about both the efficacy and accepted harms of vaccination, such discussion has been eliminated from the modern public square that social media comprises. Mailchimp is a basic email marketing service in which customers pay them to collect and warehouse the emails of those interested in the particular messages, content, services or products of the paying customer. Mailchimp allows the customer to use the email list they have build to interact with their subscriber base.

Mailchimp’s catch-all ‘anti-vaccination’ censorship move now allows them to selectively censor any content they wish with little to no repercussions from its users. In essence, the company has forced itself into the driving editorial position of organizations who have simply paid to use their email marketing services. Mailchimp is now making publishing decisions for its customers – an unsolicited and highly inappropriate move for a company to impose upon its customers. Did the paper boys and girls of times past feel the need to sit in and direct the marketing, journalism, and decisions of the individuals and organizations that comprised the content within the papers they delivered? 

Since 2018, Mailchimp has been partnered with the CDC Foundation. The CDC Foundation lists what it expects from those it partners with. One expectation is to “demonstrate opportunities for return on investment for public health, CDC, the CDC Foundation and its partners.” It should come as not surprise that the CDC, and many government representatives, view any barrier that comes between you or you child and a pharmaceutical company’s vaccine product as a risk to public health. The CDC Foundation defines public health as “…protecting the health of entire populations. These populations can be as small as a local neighborhood, or as big as an entire country or region of the world” Nowhere in the CDC’s public health definition is a word about the individual, their choices, concerns or medical vulnerabilities making them susceptible to an adverse vaccine reaction.

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