Online moral outrage often targets individuals not responsible for the harms cited
Evidence
None of the Cyprus 20 was responsible for layoffs, and the lifestyle of wealth and leisure that is shown in the video motivates many young entrepreneurs. Valleywag (and TechCrunch, which picked up the story), claimed that the participants were “ostentatious” and “tasteless,” but that seems a weak justification for repeated public castigation. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 371
Categorization
- XREF: Echoes moral panic literature and scapegoating dynamics; connects to the reader’s prior work on moral panics. — connects to: Online influencers become symbolic placeholders for audiences’ larger moral and political allegiances; Moral outrage online substitutes for confronting offenders in person — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 456