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Alarmist narratives about the flow of misinformation and its negative consequences have gained traction in recent years. If these fears are to some extent warranted, the scientific literature suggests that many of them are exaggerated. Why are people so worried about misinformation? In two pre-registered surveys conducted in the United Kingdom (N study_1 = 300, N study_2 = 300) and replicated in the United States (N study_1 = 302, N study_2 = 299), we investigated the psychological factors associated with perceived danger of misinformation and how it contributes to the popularity of alarmist narratives on misinformation. We find that the strongest, and most reliable, predictor of perceived danger of misinformation is the third-person effect (i.e. the perception that others are more vulnerable to misinformation than the self) and, in particular, the belief that "distant" others (as opposed to family and friends) are vulnerable to misinformation. The belief that societal problems have simple solutions and clear causes was consistently, but weakly, associated with perceived danger of online misinformation. Other factors, like negative attitudes toward new technologies and higher sensitivity to threats, were inconsistently, and weakly, associated with perceived danger of online misinformation. Finally, we found that participants who report being more worried about misinformation are more willing to like and share alarmist narratives on misinformation. Our findings suggest that fears about misinformation tap into our tendency to view other people as gullible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the unique relationship between panic, technology, and sexuality using a sex panic framework. Sex panic, a derivative of moral panic theory, focuses on fears related to or because of sexuality or sexual practices. Inextricably tied to emotion, sex panic events are often scripted and based on performativity. In Texas, a sex robot “testing center” attempted to open as a storefront in the suburbs of Houston. Local officials and community leaders condemned the brothel announcement. A critical discourse analysis of sixty news articles and videos, Houston City Council meeting minutes, and the subsequent city ordinances were evaluated to explore the controversy of the ultimately banned brothel. Through this analysis, prevalent discursive themes on the protection of women and children, fears about sex robot users, and concerns over how the Houston community would be viewed were found. Discursive tactics centered on creating panic around issues of rape, dehumanization, and moral standards. This study contributes to the critical scholarship on sex robots and their effects on public discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the presence of a subliminal thesis—with conspiratorial and apocalyptic content—in the discourse of the Seventh-day Adventist tradition based on a documentary analysis of Adventist publications from the 1900s to the 1990s. The history of the development of this thesis is classified into three periods: (1) Proto-Adventist Subliminal Thesis, from 1900s to 1940s, with a discourse of anti-spiritualist emphasis; (2) Adventist Subliminal Thesis' First Wave, from 1950s to 1960s, with a discourse of anti-media emphasis in the context of James Vicary's experiments in the 1950s; and (3) Adventist Subliminal Thesis' Second Wave, from 1970s to 1990s, with a discourse of conspiratorial emphasis in the context of the satanic panic of the 1980s and 1990s. The Adventist subliminal thesis is configured in a way of thinking that considers (1) the human being as a "mass-man" and culture as "mass culture"; (2) the media as having the power of manipulation and mental control; (3) adherence to moral panic phenomena as reactions to media threats to traditional values; and (4) the cosmic narrative of the Great Controversy as a worldview for understanding media messages and products as part of a satanic conspiracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The labor exchange agreements signed between Turkey and several European countries in the 1960s resulted in a large population move to Europe. While the majority of workers were men, the share of women had increased over the years. Initially overlooked, women's transborder mobility came under public scrutiny from the mid-1960s onwards. Migration scholarship has demonstrated that sending states may impose restrictive policies on women's transborder mobility to regulate their sexuality. However, this research often relies on a binary model (travel bans/no bans) where attention is paid mostly to cases in the former group. Under the rubric of moral panic, this paper offers an analytical framework to explore how control over women's sexuality can be maintained in contexts where no travel bans are adopted. Drawing on archival research, this study reveals that women's mobility triggered a moral panic in Turkey, prompting various political demands for prohibitive policies, which were met with state reluctance. Still, the disciplinary control over women's sexuality was maintained through a transnational network of ethno-national kin, spontaneous and independent of any state authority. While it was not designed to fill any power vacuum, the network effectively exercised disciplinary control over numerous Turkish women, employing discursive and punitive practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the nature and extent of moral panic (Cohen, S. (1972) 2011. Folk Devils and Moral Panics. 1st ed. Routledge) surrounding Arabic in Turkey from 1999 to 2024, using Ekşi Sözlük, a popular online forum in Turkey. All the topic titles related to Arabic within this time period (N = 1026) were compiled, yielding a corpus of 18,343 comments about Arabic. A six-phase thematic analysis (Braun, V., and V. Clarke. 2006. “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 3 (2): 77–101) revealed consistent perceptions of Arabic as a threat to Turkey’s linguistic unity, with a strong desire to limit its use. A notable increase in the instances of moral panic coincided with the rise in the Arabic-speaking population after the 2011 Syrian refugee crisis. Prevalent concerns included the use of Arabic as a sign of invasion and erosion of Turkish identity. Further analysis of 3200 comments, annotated based on whether they fuelled the panic atmosphere or resisted it, revealed a prevailing tendency among users to perpetuate the moral panic. Moral panic contexts elicited significantly more subsequent comments compared to non-moral panic contexts, as revealed by negative binomial regressions, indicating the amplifying effect of this moral panic on online discourse. The findings highlight the evolving dynamics of social control in the digital era amidst the complexities of multilingualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes a political sociological look at the knee-taking in football (or soccer) inspired by the Black Lives Matter campaign. Based upon a study of the new elites, it explores the essence of this performative act and situates it within the 'obsession' with racism and anti-racism. Based less on the reality of the problem of racism than upon the emerging values of this new 'class', the celebration and promotion of taking the knee is understood as a new type of political etiquette that combines a sense of shame-awareness with a certain contempt for the 'masses' who attend football matches. The confusion about whether the support for Black Lives Matter was political or not is discussed with reference to the idea of the changed and to some extent incoherent nature of the modern elites whose values, it is suggested, are more a form of anti-matter than a clear projection of ideas and beliefs. As a result, the quasi-religious nature of the sentiment expressed in modern anti-racism and the action of taking the knee are considered in relation to the ideas of 'raising awareness' and of 'educating yourself', both of which have an implicitly elitist quality but also lack precision or clarity about either the problem being addressed or any solution to it. Often more therapeutic than overtly political, elite anti-racism is almost by necessity performative, but also comes with a disciplinary dimension for those who refuse to 'take the knee' to it. Ultimately, it is suggested that the contestation over the knee-taking gesture reflects a growing cultural divide between the disconnected globalist elites and the more grounded and situated masses who often opposed those who demand their acquiescence towards this performative form of anti-racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Moral panics have regularly erupted in society, but they appear almost daily on social media. We propose that social media helps fuel moral panics by combining perceived societal threats with a powerful signal of social amplification—virality. Eight studies with multiple methods test a social amplification model of moral panics in which virality amplifies perceptions of threats posed by deviant behavior and ideas, prompting moral outrage expression. Three naturalistic studies of Twitter (N = 237,230) reveal that virality predicts moral outrage in response to tweets about controversial issues, even when controlling for specific tweet content. Five experiments (N = 1,499) reveal the causal impact of virality on outrage expression and suggest that feelings of danger mediate this effect. This work connects classic ideas about moral panics with ongoing research on social media and provides a perspective on the nature of moral outrage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This piece takes its cue from a pair of incidents – a not unfamiliar theme in game studies – relating to game scholarship and its engagement with right-wing politics. In the first case, well-known game scholar Bonnie 'Bo' Ruberg called on editors and reviewers to stop insisting that scholars include a reference to a certain online campaign of harassment, doxing and threats of physical violence. In the second case, I had a reviewer insist that I had to include a reference to the 'Fortnite to alt-right pipeline' because clearly games were causing alt-right lunacy. To be sure, these both constitute genre criticism – among others – at its most reductive and cynical, deciding what the institutional and audience expectations entail based on an assumption of the industrial ones. Then, biographical criticism and assertions about authorial intent or the necessary 'touchstones' began to appear. There seems to be a consistent and persistent insistence that somehow even the best and most accomplished scholars should forget decades of scholarship because 'games are different' and this tendency has been conditioned and shaped by reading games through the 'lens' of the Trump presidency. This is important because it confirms that essays about games still tend to fit into one of the two boxes Ruberg ticks: game scholars who are not necessarily adept at the specific content area or specialists in a given field who are not really game scholars. It is telling and symptomatic of the centripetal and centrifugal movements in game studies; that is, from within and without. Admittedly, games are different, but not so different that we should forget or ignore decades of scholarship or worse, do not bother to find out if it exists at all. Not only are many of these positions ahistorical – ignoring the fact that, as some much maligned games quite cleverly point out repeatedly within, the same things have been said about the corrupting power of soap operas, romance novels, comic books, wrestling, rap and hip hop, backwards masking in heavy metal and plain old rock 'n' roll – the positions are also tacitly or unwittingly ageist, classist and/or occasionally racist, homophobic and transphobic even as the author purports to be concerned with inequitable representations. Moreover, there are peculiarly US American concerns that are transposed onto ostensibly universal ones. These reveal that even the most 'woke' of the American left can be a cultural imperialist and that American exceptionalism is inescapable if not ineluctable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1980 a book appeared which caused a considerable stir across the globe: Michelle Remembers by Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith. This book helped set in train what was later referred to by scholars as the "Satanic Panic" or the "Satanism Scare". While the book became infamous, little analysis by scholars has been given to the authors' Roman Catholicism, or more importantly to the wider way in which Catholicism contributed to this moral panic. While the influence of Christians more generally has been noted, sparse attention has been given to the ways in which a variety of distinctly Catholic vernacular beliefs and subcultures fed and spread this panic. This article seeks to map some of the contours of the specifically Catholic contribution to the wider Satanic Panic mythology, contextualising this against the backdrop of a wider ecclesial shift in a conservative direction during this period and the Church's longer history of demonology. The paper concludes by suggesting that this Satanic Panic mythology persists and forms one important reservoir of ideas drawn on in contemporary demonology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A considerable amount of research in Western countries during the past 30 years has found a strong tendency to associate Muslims with violent acts. This has resulted in an increase in Islamophobia. This article examines Lithuania's media, politicians, and public perceptions on terrorism-Muslims in order to understand the correlation between Lithuanian media and political discourse on Muslims and their connection with public discourses. I propose that the weaker the linkage between media and political portrayals associating terrorism with Muslims is with public perceptions of terrorism and Muslims, the less likely the latter will see Muslims as folk devils. My analysis of the data supports this hypothesis and conclusively shows that media and political discourse do not have a hegemonic power to control the portrayal of Muslims and to create a sense of moral panic among Lithuanians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to analyze an online news story and the comments made by readers regarding a teacher who taught a class set up as a drag queen in relation to the curriculum and cultural pedagogy of masculinities. Methodologically, the data were collected from digital ethnography carried out on a journalistic website on which it was published. The theoretical perspective adopted is post-critical in Education. It was understood how much the positive and negative criticisms of his professional performance indicated, curriculumpedagogically, the masculinity that has been produced in contexts of moral panic and anti-Human Rights agendas. At the same time, the deterritorialization of gender through the prosthetic performance of drag in a school institution allowed expanding processes of recognition beyond a hegemonic expectation in terms of sexual difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political forces such as Vox consider squatting a serious problem for Spanish society. They highlight its dangers, promote measures such as «anti-squatting offices», and demand legislative modifications to speed up evictions. This study examines whether the media, specifically «El Programa de Ana Rosa» (Telecinco), share this perspective and to what extent it fits with the moral panic theories. We identify the discursive frames about squatting deployed by the party during the 2023 general election campaign and compare them with the frames of the TV show. We analyze how these squatters are represented and how the TV show relates this problem to the housing market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The belief that consuming violent media will lead someone to commit violence is a longstanding societal concern. This concern manifests in the phenomenon of 'antis' within fandoms, which began to emerge around 2016. Initially driven by shipping conflicts, the issue of social justice and the increasing use of social media have allowed this phenomenon to spread easily across various fandoms worldwide. Antis' behavior can be seen as a form of moral panic in several ways: by associating pro-shippers-those who do not agree that consuming violent content will turn someone into a perpetrator or supporter of violence-with sexual offenders and pedophiles, antis use an 'us versus them' mentality to uphold their moral standards and portray themselves as the most moral group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religious studies scholars invested in something called "method and theory" seem intent on remaining stuck in a conversation dictated by proving our political worth in the world. That desire to move outside the walls of the academy ironically keeps us trapped inside one of its smallest and most unfortunate corners, where a theory/praxis binary is manufactured and propagated, kept alive by our personal anxieties about our professional value. My comments here aim to address this proliferating anxiety that continues to have an overdetermined presence in the field – an anxiety that manufactures a moral panic out of critical theory, limiting our intellectual possibilities and keeping us talking in circles in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically evaluates societal reactions to integrating LGBTQ+ content into the Relationship and Sex Education (RSE) curriculum in England and Wales. Utilising Stanley Cohen’s theory of moral panics, it examines the roles of media, moral entrepreneurs, authorities, and the public in shaping debates around educational reforms. The paper highlights the complexities of balancing traditional values and inclusivity in education, emphasising the necessity of a considerate and comprehensive RSE approach. The study employs mixed methods, combining qualitative and quantitative analyses, to explore the multifaceted nature of this societal issue and its wider implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Populist politicians such as Viktor Orbán are masters at harnessing intense and polarizing moral emotions: they stigmatize the enemies of the people, offer their community protection as self-proclaimed heroes, and at the same time, othering and moral transgressing trigger emotional overreactions from opponents. This article draws on a new analytical framework that incorporates theories of social labeling (moral panic and euphoria, moral entrepreneurship) and heroic/charismatic leadership to explore this multifaceted and antagonistic emotional relationship associated with populists. The theoretical reasoning suggests that these emotional dynamics define the moral cornerstones and boundaries of populist identity politics. Based on an analysis of four illustrative Hungarian cases - the migration crisis, anti-gender politics, the Authorisation Act during the coronavirus pandemic, and Fidesz's expulsion from the European People's Party - the article shows that populists can follow different paths to become charismatic heroes in the eyes of his supporters, while others still see them as folk devils due to their controversial moral entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many researchers have noted that media coverage of drugs can be sensationalized and/or have questionable accuracy. Additionally, it has been alleged that the media often treats all drugs as harmful and can fail to differentiate between different types of drugs. Within this context, the researchers sought to deconstruct how media coverage was similar and/or different according to drug type within a national media outlet in Malaysia. Our sample comprised 487 news articles published over a two-year period. Articles were coded to reflect thematic differences in drug framing. We focus on five drugs widely used in Malaysia (amphetamines, opiates, cannabis, cocaine, and kratom) and assess the most frequent themes, crimes, and locations mentioned in reference to each drug. All drugs were primarily covered in a criminal justice context, and articles highlighted concern about the spread of these drugs and their abuse. Drug coverage varied, particularly in association with violent crimes, specific regions, and discussion of legality. We find evidence of both similarities and differences in how drugs were covered. Variation in coverage demonstrated that certain drugs were deemed a heightened threat, as well as reflected broader social/political processes shaping ongoing debates over treatment approaches and legality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study is a corpus-based discourse analysis of the metaphorical framing of Covid-19 in American political discourse. Drawing on data from a corpus of the White House briefings and statements, the study investigates the corpus profile of war and virus and illustrates how the Coronavirus is primarily represented as an enemy to go to war with, rather than a public health crisis to control and mitigate. The study further situates the militaristic framing of Covid-19 within the theoretical framework of moral panic and examines the discursive features that ultimately bridge the metaphorical representation of the pandemic and the construction of moral panic. The study points to nuanced discourse strategies used in the White House press briefings that reconstruct the enemy and regroup the Coronavirus with other so-called enemies of the United States, such as the Communists, as well as the Islamic radicals and the Latin gangs and cartels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on the presidential address presented to the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era at the meeting of the Organization of American Historians in Los Angeles in 2023. Its focus is Maury Diggs and Drew Caminetti, two white men from Sacramento, California, charged with violating the Mann Act (known as the White Slave Trafficking Act) in 1913. The Gilded Age and Progressive Era obsession with white slavery, a phenomenon that has particular resonance in today's climate, reveals the power of moral panics. Examining the steps, and missteps, that various legal, social, and political entities, including all three branches of government, took in response to Diggs and Caminetti's actions highlights some of the major social changes gripping the nation. Moral panics can be investigated as crucial historical sites of contestation, revealing efforts to neutralize or turn back the societal changes perceived to be the greatest threat to the prevailing social power structure—in this case foreigners, the new leisure culture, the liberalization of sexual attitudes, and the threat of female independence. Understanding the origins and repercussions of past moral panics can help identify, understand, and possibly defuse future panics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The greatest conceptual challenge that moral panic studies has struggled with over the past half century is the problem of disproportion. Since the field's inception, moral panics have been conceptualized as disproportionately conservative overreactions to ostensibly insignificant problems. It did not take long for critics, many of whom were working in moral panic studies or related fields of inquiry, to point out that disproportion is construed in a normative rather than empirical manner, and to supplement the conventional focus on conservative overreactions by drawing attention to either conservatively conditioned underreactions (missing panics) or socially progressive overreactions that are cultivated on the political left rather than the right (good moral panics). This article explains how the dynamics of disproportionate social reactions are more complicated than conventional moral panic scholars and their critics alike have recognized. By theorizing the nuances involved in disproportionate social reactions, the article develops a provisional framework to encourage theoretical and conceptual investigations into different kinds of moral boundary violations. The focus of analysis is on the problem of disproportion as it appears in moral panic studies, but scholars working with a broader range of realist, materialist, and/or critical perspectives will recognize and identify with the normative challenges posed by the problem of disproportion in their respective areas of inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the presence of a subliminal thesis—with conspiratorial and apocalyptic content—in the discourse of the Seventh-day Adventist tradition based on a documentary analysis of Adventist publications from the 1900s to the 1990s. The history of the development of this thesis is classified into three periods: (1) Proto-Adventist Subliminal Thesis, from 1900s to 1940s, with a discourse of anti-spiritualist emphasis; (2) Adventist Subliminal Thesis’ First Wave, from 1950s to 1960s, with a discourse of anti-media emphasis in the context of James Vicary’s experiments in the 1950s; and (3) Adventist Subliminal Thesis’ Second Wave, from 1970s to 1990s, with a discourse of conspiratorial emphasis in the context of the satanic panic of the 1980s and 1990s. The Adventist subliminal thesis is configured in a way of thinking that considers (1) the human being as a “mass-man” and culture as “mass culture”; (2) the media as having the power of manipulation and mental control; (3) adherence to moral panic phenomena as reactions to media threats to traditional values; and (4) the cosmic narrative of the Great Controversy as a worldview for understanding media messages and products as part of a satanic conspiracy.

In 2021, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief presented his 'Report on Freedom of Thought' to the United Nations General Assembly. This was the first substantive consideration of the right to freedom of thought at the United Nations level since the right was recognised in 1948. This paper provides interdisciplinary reflections on this report to support ongoing discussions on the appropriate content and scope of this fundamental human right. We begin by addressing reasons for the historical neglect of this right, namely the right being viewed as more symbolic than practical and relevant interests being perceived as already protected by other rights. Next, given there is no consensus on what the right protects, or how it protects, we consider its potential attributes. We then consider potential violations of this right, turning to its application to mental health. Finally, we consider the Special Rapporteur's recommendations, discussing how some may be realised through human rights-centered regulation in the form of the European Union's new Digital Services Act. In this context, we also briefly consider relevant aspects of the EU Commission's proposal for an AI Act. We conclude by outlining pressing challenges facing the development of this right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions remain over whether internet and social media use are associated with mental health outcomes in youth. Data has remained inconsistent in previous longitudinal studies. The current study sought to extend this work with a longitudinal study involving Irish youth (N = 8,500) assessed initially at age 9 (time 1; T1), then again at ages 13 (time 2; T2) and 17/18 (time 3; T3). Analyses were preregistered. Early internet use (T1) and social media use (T2) were assessed along with controls for emotional problems at T1 and T2, language problems, parental conflict, popularity, and happiness at T1. Outcomes included emotional problems, peer problems, and emotional stability at T3. Results indicated that early internet use and social media use were not associated with later mental health problems when controlling for other factors. These results do not support the belief that social media use is a predictor of later mental health problems in youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central to the growth and visibility of conspiracy theory QAnon is the #SaveTheChildren movement – a digital social movement aimed to bring awareness to and end child trafficking. This paper analyzes the #SaveTheChildren movement on image-sharing platform Instagram, where the hashtag (and related others) had to be shielded by the platform because of its association with QAnon. A thematic analysis of #SaveTheChildren posts examines the motivations, tactics, and desired outcomes of the movement. Emergent themes highlight the pervasive spread of misinformation regarding human trafficking and the ideological, political, and social motivations of posters. Drawing on shared reality theory and social identity theory, we argue that the movement represents a 'networked moral panic' and explore the structural limitations of digital social movements in an era of information disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is common for the media to cast young people as dangerous and delinquent, particularly when those young people derive from marginalized backgrounds. Moral panics are fuelled and sustained by the media in their role as agents of moral indignation. Additionally, the media represent a powerful source of moral regulation, often working against the interests of young people. In this paper, a recent media focus on the 'youth crime crisis' in Queensland, Australia is examined to consider potential ways in which public discourse might move beyond deficit tropes to develop more nuanced and productive conceptualizations of youth. We draw on emergent theorizations of the 'figurations' that define the ways in which 'youth' is understood in public discourse to consider how mediated social imaginaries work to produce representations of young people and frame possibilities for thinking about their place in contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In terms of obtaining information people nowadays depend on the use of social media such as Instagram due to its ease of access. This routine has also changed media institutions in disseminating information, which is through their social media account for audience engagement and news distribution to survive in the information technology era. This research focuses on news dissemination through Instagram on health communication. It was found that such means through Instagram caused a moral panic among the audience. The health issue put in the spotlight of this research is paracetamol and chronic kidney in children, actively reported in October-November 2023 in Indonesia. The result showed moral panic materialized from incomplete information due to limited sentences. Other factors are building personal assumptions, blaming other parties, to distortion of information. This study uses the netnographic method on Instagram posts on @kompascom social media news account. The research is carried out in several stages consisting of investigation, interaction, immersion, and integration. This was conducted to see the culture of social media users of the news account. The data consisted of 162 comments from 6 news posts on @kompascom.

This paper takes a political sociological look at the knee-taking in football (or soccer) inspired by the Black Lives Matter campaign. Based upon a study of the new elites, it explores the essence of this performative act and situates it within the ‘obsession’ with racism and anti-racism. Based less on the reality of the problem of racism than upon the emerging values of this new ‘class’, the celebration and promotion of taking the knee is understood as a new type of political etiquette that combines a sense of shame-awareness with a certain contempt for the ‘masses’ who attend football matches. The confusion about whether the support for Black Lives Matter was political or not is discussed with reference to the idea of the changed and to some extent incoherent nature of the modern elites whose values, it is suggested, are more a form of anti-matter than a clear projection of ideas and beliefs. As a result, the quasi-religious nature of the sentiment expressed in modern anti-racism and the action of taking the knee are considered in relation to the ideas of ‘raising awareness’ and of ‘educating yourself’, both of which have an implicitly elitist quality but also lack precision or clarity about either the problem being addressed or any solution to it. Often more therapeutic than overtly political, elite anti-racism is almost by necessity performative, but also comes with a disciplinary dimension for those who refuse to ‘take the knee’ to it. Ultimately, it is suggested that the contestation over the knee-taking gesture reflects a growing cultural divide between the disconnected globalist elites and the more grounded and situated masses who often opposed those who demand their acquiescence towards this performative form of anti-racism.

Objectives This article concerns the phenomenon of "death groups" – suicidal communities – as a social media phenomenon. It specifies the stages of their development, the characteristics of these groups –– with particular emphasis on the "Blue Whale" game. It is indicated that one of the main roles in committing suicidal acts among young people is played by the virtual network in which these groups are organized, managed and coordinated. Material and methods The purpose of the article is to present "death groups" as destructive communities formed in virtual space and inspired by computer games. The research method used is a qualitative analysis of the discourse on death groups in the Eastern European segment of the Internet – with a particular focus on the discourse in the Polish, Ukrainian and Russian segments. Results Based on a qualitative analysis of Internet discourse in the Eastern European segment of the Internet, it is highlighted that "death groups" are a social network phenomenon contributing to the formation of suicidal behavior of children and adolescents trying to escape from problems in reality. Death groups were characterized as a network game and as a suicidal subculture containing techniques for manipulating human behavior. Conclusions It was shown that playing the theme of committing suicide, inducing another person to commit a suicidal act moves from the virtual world to the real world – where it can be realized. Another finding was the dependence of the popularization of these groups on moral panic. The article emphasizes that "death groups" in the online space and the mechanisms they use are secondary causes of suicidal behavior of adolescents and young people - while the primary causes remain traditional.

While academic works on the ‘gender critical’ movement have generally focused on its advocacy and claims regarding womanhood and adult women, the movement also heavily targets children. This article contributes a case study of ‘gender critical’ activism around children in the United Kingdom, which is strongly committed to the belief that children cannot be ‘genuinely’ trans. Building on the argument that anti-trans movements seek to undermine the institutions that allow for trans people’s social existence as trans people, it demonstrates that ‘gender critical’ groups seek to intervene in the institutions that regulate childhood in order to inhibit trans children’s ability to both understand themselves and exist socially as trans children. This requires interventions targeting education, specifically for the removal of trans-inclusive guidance and teaching resources. However, it also requires interventions into the family and the recruitment of parents as ‘gender coaches’ best placed to encourage desistance.

Recently, new social anxieties about transgender people have begun to emerge, framed as an issue of "grooming"—a term typically used in the context of child sexual abuse. In this way, moral panic about transgender people seems to be merging with oft‐repeated social fears about pedophilia, resulting not only in policies criminalizing trans people and their allies but also in escalating hatred and threats toward trans‐affirming educators. This pattern requires further inquiry. As a trans academic who has been at the center of moral panic, my own hate mail can provide material for this exploration. I conducted a content analysis of 231 letters and e‐mails sent to me containing messages of hate, to answer the following research questions: What beliefs and understandings did my correspondents indicate having about me and my research?To what extent did my correspondents' beliefs and understandings about me reflect intersecting contemporary moral panics around trans and queer people, pedophilia, and educators?What stated or implied goals did my correspondents aim to achieve by writing to me? The findings of this study can add to understanding of how moral panics can converge, and the consequences of their convergence for marginalized groups in academia and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]