In my case I downvoted because the author of the post considers it a basilisk. I'm not entirely convinced that basilisks exist in any real sense, and definitely agree with you that rationalists need an approach to them; but unless and until there is an approach, if you think some piece of information will cause illness or death (without positive results), it's morally wrong to share it. Thus, even though I think this 'basilisk' utterly harmless, I am not convinced all 'basilisks' are, and don't want people to keep posting things they consider harmful until there's a way of dealing with them. So on the basis of 'downvote if you want to see fewer posts like this' I downvoted.