An Auckland mother has hit out at Instagram after the social media site refused to remove photos of her sick son which she says were used by anti-vaxers as propaganda for their cause.
Tracey Fox posted about her son Ryan who was ill two days after his first measles jab. He'd had the vaccination the day after he turned six months.
Hospital doctors had told her measles could be a possibility.
"And I did a post saying 'Please vaccinate your kids'. There are babies that are too young to be protected," Ms Fox told Seven Sharp.
She wrote in the post: "I am completely all for people making their own choices in life, but when said choices hurt my baby it's really just not fair."
Three days after that, an anti-vaxer Instagram account picked up her post, and re-posted her pictures of Ryan with their own agenda.
"They started saying 'This is what happens when you vaccinate your kids'," Ms Fox said.
Messages directed at her then started, such as, "You don't care about your son. How can you be so stupid?"
Another read: "She won't pay attention or be open to your input until the kid either sustains further damages or dies. And that's fine."
“They say it doesn't breach any of their community standards, which I find completely wrong
Ms Fox said her main issue was that "they'd taken photos from my Instagram and they were using Ryan as propaganda for their whole anti-vaxer thing".
She said Instagram would not take the pictures down from the anti-vaxer Instagram account.
"They say it doesn't breach any of their community standards, which I find completely wrong," she said.
Ms Fox said the anti-vaxers have "completely changed our story" into the opposite of what she intended.
She has now locked down her social media settings.
"It's given me a big wake up call.
"I'm now completely private. You can't message me, you can't follow me or anything like that."
As for Ryan, he's "back to normal, back to his old self," Ms Fox said.
Doctors say his illness could have been an MMR vaccine reaction or a viral infection.
Ryan's next vaccination is due in six months and his mother said he'll "definitely" be getting it. "Not a question."
Seven Sharp host Jeremy Wells pointed out that when you post pictures on Instagram, Facebook and many other social media sites, the terms and conditions state that you give those sites the rights to those photos in perpetuity.
"So that means forever they have access to do whatever they want with those images," Wells said.
"I guess most people don't read the terms and conditions of those things. But you're not going to expect that they're going to be used for an anti-vaxing situation are you?"
"Especially when it's the opposite message that you intended in the first place," co-host Hilary Barry added.
SHARE ME