Editing Moral panic (section)

=== Contemporary examples ===

==== Satanic panic (1980s–present) ====
{{Main|Satanic panic}}

The "satanic panic" was a series of moral panics regarding satanic ritual abuse that originated in the United States and spread to other English-speaking countries in the 1980s and 1990s, which led to a string of wrongful convictions.{{sfn|Goode|Ben-Yehuda|2009|pp=57–65}}<ref name="Jenkins">{{Cite book |title=Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America |last=Jenkins |first=Philip |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |year=1998 |isbn=978-0300109634 |location=New Haven, Connecticut |pages=[https://archive.org/details/moralpanicchangi0000jenk/page/207 207–231] |author-link=Philip Jenkins |url=https://archive.org/details/moralpanicchangi0000jenk/page/207 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend |last=Victor |first=Jeffrey S. |publisher=[[Open Court Publishing Company]] |year=1993 |isbn=978-0812691917 |location=Chicago |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic |last=Young |first=Mary |publisher=McFarland |year=2004 |isbn=978-0786418305 |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |author-link=Mary de Young}}</ref> The [[West Memphis Three]] were three teenagers falsely accused of murdering children in a satanic ritual.{{citation needed|date=October 2022}} Two were sentenced to life in prison and one was sentenced to death, before all being released after 18 years in prison.

==== Human trafficking (2000–present) ====
Many critics of contemporary anti-prostitution activism argue that much of the current concern about [[human trafficking]] and its more general conflation with [[prostitution]] and other forms of [[sex work]] have hallmarks of moral panic. They further argue that this moral panic shares much in common with the '[[white slavery]]' panic of a century earlier, which in the US prompted passage of the 1910 ''[[Mann Act]]''.<ref>{{Cite journal |doi=10.1007/s12147-999-0021-9 |pmid=12296110 |title=Loose women or lost women? The re-emergence of the myth of white slavery in contemporary discourses of trafficking in women |journal=Gender Issues |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=23–50 |year=1999 |last1=Doezema |first1=Jo |s2cid=39806701 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Weitzer |first1=Ronald |title=The Social Construction of Sex Trafficking: Ideology and Institutionalization of a Moral Crusade |journal=Politics & Society |date=September 2007 |volume=35 |issue=3 |pages=447–475 |doi=10.1177/0032329207304319 |s2cid=154583133 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |doi=10.2139/ssrn.1333994 |chapter=Women's bodies, moral panic and the world game: Sex trafficking, the 2006 Football World Cup and beyond |title=Proceedings of the Second Australia and New Zealand Critical Criminology Conference |year=2009 |last1=Cunneen |first1=Chris |last2=Salter |first2=Michael |isbn=978-0-646-50737-8 |pages=222–242 |s2cid=146691694 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |doi=10.2298/TEM0802021M |title=Football and sex: The 2006 FIFA World Cup and sex trafficking |journal=Temida |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=21–47 |year=2008 |last1=Milivojevic |first1=Sanja |last2=Pickering |first2=Sharon |doi-access=free }}</ref> [[Nick Davies]] argues that the following major factors contributed towards this effect. Since the [[collapse of Communism]], Western Europe was flooded with sex workers from [[Eastern Europe]], and the term ''sex trafficking'' came to mean any organized movement of sex workers, losing the connotation of force and coercion. This change of the definition entered, e.g., into the UK's [[Sexual Offences Act 2003]]. Second, academic researchers on sex trade provided a range of estimates of the trafficked persons, including estimates based on various assumptions, up to the very pessimistic ones. The media picked the most alarmist numbers, which were uncritically used by politicians, who in their turn were quoted for further misleading information.<ref>{{Cite news | last1 = Davies | first1 = Nick | author-link = Nick Davies | title=Prostitution and trafficking – the anatomy of a moral panic| work=[[The Guardian]]| access-date=29 November 2009 | date=20 October 2009 | url= https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/20/trafficking-numbers-women-exaggerated }}</ref>

==== Terrorism and Islamic extremism (2001–present) ====
{{Main|War on Terror}}

After the [[September 11 attacks]] in 2001, some scholars identified a rising [[Islamophobia|fear of Muslims]] in the western world, which they described as a moral panic.<ref>{{Cite book |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-71776-0_8 |chapter='Ta-Ta Qatada': Islamophobic Moral Panic and the British Tabloid Press |title=Media, Crime and Racism |year=2018 |last1=Meyer |first1=Anneke |last2=Poynting |first2=Scott |pages=139–160 |isbn=978-3-319-71775-3 }}</ref><ref name="MoralPanicToPermanentWar" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Morgan |first1=George |title=Global Islamophobia: Muslims and Moral Panic in the West |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-12772-7 }}{{page needed|date=August 2022}}</ref> This exaggeration of the threat posed by Islam served a political purpose, contributing to the concept of a global [[war on terror]], including the [[War in Afghanistan (2001–present)|war in Afghanistan]] and a [[Iraq War|war in Iraq]].<ref name="MoralPanicToPermanentWar" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Bonn |first1=Scott A. |title=[[Mass Deception|Mass Deception: Moral Panic and the U.S. War on Iraq]] |date=2010 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-4996-5}}{{page needed|date=August 2022}}</ref>

Following the September 11 attacks, there was a dramatic increase in hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs in the United States, with rates peaking in 2001 and later surpassed in 2016.<ref name="MoralPanicToPermanentWar" /><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/15/assaults-against-muslims-in-u-s-surpass-2001-level/ |title=Assaults against Muslims in U.S. surpass 2001 level |publisher=[[Pew Research Center]] |last=Kishi |first=Katayoun |date=November 15, 2017 |access-date=September 16, 2019}}</ref>

==== African gangs (2007–2018) ====
{{main|African gangs moral panic}}
A moral panic occurred in Australia between 2007 and 2018, centred on the supposed presence of [[Sudanese-Australian]] criminal gangs.<ref name="Benier,Blaustein,Johns,Maher">{{cite web |last1=Benier |first1=Kathryn |last2=Blaustein |first2=Jarrett |last3=Johns |first3=Diana |last4=Maher |first4=Sarah |title='Don't drag me into this' Growing up South Sudanese in Victoria after the 2016 Moomba 'riot' |url=https://cmy.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Dont-Drag-Me-Into-This-Research-Report-Oct-2018-FINAL.pdf |website=Centre for Multicultural Youth |publisher=Monash University |access-date=15 June 2024}}</ref> The height of the panic coincided with the [[2018 Victorian state election|Victorian State election of 2018]], and was strongly linked to members of the [[Australian Liberal Party]] and right-wing newspapers.<ref name="Kounmoris&Blaustein">{{cite journal |last1=Kounmouris |first1=Gregory |last2=Blaustein |first2=Jarrett |title=Reporting 'African gangs': Theorising journalistic practice during a multi-mediated moral panic |journal=Crime, Media, Culture |date=2021 |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=105–125 |doi=10.1177/1741659021991205 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/1741659021991205 |access-date=15 June 2024}}</ref> The racialised nature of the panic showed great similarities to the "Black muggers" panic studied by Hall, but met with greater resistance from local "experts" such as senior police and politicians, limiting its effectiveness to a degree.<ref name="Kounmoris&Blaustein" />

==== QAnon conspiracies (2020s) ====
[[QAnon]], a late-2010s to early 2020s far-right conspiracy theory that began on [[4chan]] and which alleged that a secret [[cabal]] of [[Judaism|Jewish]], [[Satan Worshipping|Satan-worshipping]], [[Human cannibalism|cannibalistic]] pedophiles is running a global [[Child sex trafficking|child sex-trafficking]] ring, has been described as a moral panic and compared to the 1980s panic over satanic ritual abuse.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Vrzal |first1=Miroslav |title=QAnon as a variation of a Satanic conspiracy theory : an overview |journal=Theory and Practice in English Studies |date=2020 |volume=9 |issue=1–2 |pages=45–66 |hdl=11222.digilib/143485 }}</ref>

==== LGBT "grooming" conspiracy theory (2020s) ====
{{main|LGBTQ grooming conspiracy theory}}
Since the early 2020s, members of the [[far-right]] and a growing number of mainstream [[Conservatism in the United States|conservatives]], mostly in the United States, have falsely accused [[LGBT people]], drag performers, and educators of [[Child grooming|grooming children]] for including [[LGBT sex education|LGBT-positive material]]. These accusations include several elements of misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracies characterized by scholars as [[homophobic]] and [[transphobic]], and sometimes related to a broader moral panic about transgender people.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Walker |first=Allyn |date=November 2023 |title=Transphobic discourse and moral panic convergence: A content analysis of my hate mail |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9125.12355 |journal=Criminology |volume=61 |issue=4 |pages=994–1021 |doi=10.1111/1745-9125.12355 |issn=0011-1384}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Phippen |first=Andy |title=Online Harms Moral Panics, the Last Five Years |date=2025 |work=Policy and Rights Challenges in Children’s Online Behaviour and Safety, 2017–2023 |pages=47–70 |url=https://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-031-80286-7_3 |access-date=2025-03-19 |place=Cham |publisher=Springer Nature Switzerland |doi=10.1007/978-3-031-80286-7_3 |isbn=978-3-031-80285-0}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Marwick |first=Alice |last2=Smith |first2=Jacob |last3=Basnight |first3=Belle |last4=Boyles |first4=Dahlia |last5=Donnelly |first5=Margaret |last6=Kaczynski |first6=Stephanie |last7=Ringel |first7=Evan |last8=Whitmarsh |first8=Sarah |last9=Yabase |first9=Carolina |date=October 2024 |title=Child-Sacrificing Drag Queens: Historical Antecedents in Disinformative Narratives Supporting the Drag Queen Story Hour Moral Panic |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07491409.2024.2396288 |journal=Women's Studies in Communication |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=459–479 |doi=10.1080/07491409.2024.2396288 |issn=0749-1409}}</ref>