I've got a perfect example for you! Transgender children and adolescents. In the U.S. and the U.K., moral panics are going on right now over transgender issues, and huge amounts of false information about medical treatment for trans youth is fueling fires of hatred.
All over the U.S., protesters and lawmakers are screaming about genital mutilation. "Stop castrating children! Stop leaving little boys with gaping wounds they pretend are vaginas!"
These demands originated on social media and take up vast amounts of social media bandwidth.
They are based on nonsense.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, does genital surgery on trans minors. And even in nations where the age of majority is 16 or 17, international medical associations say 18 is the minimum age that such surgeries should be approved.
Thailand, a nation where some of the world's best gender-affirming surgeons work, wrote the age-18 requirement into law a few years ago.
In the U.S., insurance companies will not pay for genital surgery for youth under 18, and surgeons will not perform such surgeries.
Ditto for the U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS).
But despite the fact that mainstream news media report the truth of the matter pretty often, social media is awash with people convinced that trans girls are having their "penises chopped off" when they're prepubescent or in their early teens.
And they're outraged. Oh, they are so outraged. 🙄
A few weeks ago, I wrote a story about Mother's Day, a story calling for love and respect for a school teacher who was reprimanded over a picture-book reading to young children that included families with single parents and same-sex parents.
On Twitter, I got piled on for that story — called out as one of those "LGBT Mafia" types who wants to mutilate children's genitals.
I was very patient, pointing out that my story was not about trans people and that, besides, trans children do not undergo genital surgery and nobody is advocating otherwise.
I might as well have been talking to the wind. The mob were utterly certain about the existence and prevalence of a nonexistent practice.
One woman even tweeted out a New York Times article to "prove" her point.
Astonishingly, the article actually proved my point. She either hadn't read it all the way to end or she hadn't understood what she read.
What happened when I reported those tweets filled with false information and hate speech? Nothing happened. Nothing at all.
At least on Twitter, the uninformed mob are in charge. And state legislators are following right along.
