You should see what antivaxxers and cancer quacks routinely do and have done to me (and fellow science communicators) over the last 16 years. A recap:

1.) I've had many complaints sent to my cancer center director, department chair, and dean more times than I can remember. 1/ https://twitter.com/mccormick_ted/status/1362380340518658051

2. I've had antivaxxers deluge the board of governors of my uni with complaints about a nonexistent "COI" trying to get me fired, disciplined, or at least silenced.

3. I've had a believer in a cancer quack complain about my blog and me to the state medical board. 2/

4. I've had a cancer quack send emails complaining about me to every faculty member in my department whose email address he could find.

5. Six years later, that same cancer quack still occasionally surprises me with such an email to everyone. in the deparment. 3/

6. Most recently (last week), I was on the receiving end of abusive, threatening, angry rants left on voicemail at my cancer center office by believers in chronic Lyme disease.

7. A few years ago I and every other @ScienceBasedMed blogger were sued by a "Lyme-literate" doc. 4/

The bottom line is this. Harassing critics and defenders of science-based medicine at their place of work is a feature, not a bug, of the strategies used by science-denying cranks and quacks. It's happened to me so many times over the last 16 years I can't remember how many. 5/

Fortunately, in academia, these tactics *rarely* work, because of the ethos of academic freedom. Indeed, one of my bosses routinely jokes when he sees me that he hasn't had any complaints about me recently. My response is usually to say that I must be falling down on the job. 6/

However, if you're working for a private company, quite often these techniques will be effective because management doesn't want to deal with the hassles of cranks bothering them about an employee's social media activity. Also, they can just fire you if you don't stop. 7/

Similarly, another technique of cranks to silence an employee is to flood the social media pages of the university or company with abusive messages. If the critic is a physician, posting fake negative reviews on physician review sites is another favorite tactic. 8/

And people wonder why so many of us on social media who stand up for science like to remain pseudonymous. Of course, your pseudonym has to be bulletproof, because the cranks are VERY good at doxxing. 9/

This is the reality for those who would push back against pseudoscience, quackery, misinformation, and disinformation. 10/10