Coronavirus Rule Breakers Draw Public Ire Online
As the movements of vast swaths of the global population are restricted due to the coronavirus pandemic, those who test the limits of quarantines and social distancing are drawing a fierce backlash online.
An employee in Beijing of German pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG lost her job after she was heckled by an online mob for going outside her home to run in defiance of government orders. An Ohio man on spring break in Miami has become the subject of a tsunami of social media vitriol for insisting the coronavirus wouldn’t stop him from partying. And in the Philippines, police got help from Facebook users as they tracked down a man who escaped from quarantine.
Virtual vigilantes are using the internet to name and shame people they believe are putting others at risk by reckless leisure travel, unnecessary socializing and violating rules of quarantine. On Twitter, people have posted photos of groups drinking at bars in the U.S. and Hong Kong, lambasting them for irresponsible behavior.
“It’s part of efforts to pressure other people to do the ‘right’ thing and assert moral authority,” said Lauren Rosewarne, a social scientist at the University of Melbourne, Australia. “Public shaming of people has occurred throughout history. The internet simply enables people to do this with a broader reach and bigger audience.”
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