Moral Panics

The Online Safety Act doesn’t make our children any safer

The Online Safety Act may be well-intentioned, but it is a fundamentally flawed attempt to legislate away a complex social issue.

When the Great Resist conspiracy conference came to the North East

The Great Resist meeting, and its touring band of conspiracy theorists, brought their antivax rhetoric and trans-panic messaging to Gateshead

Polybius: the legendary video game that never actually existed

According to legend, Polybius was a highly addictive 1981 arcade game developed by a shadowy game studio called Sinneslöschen... but it didn't exist

Got any leads? Dog thieves won’t really leave secret signs outside your house

Claims that would-be dog thieves mark their victims' houses with stickers echo old urban legends designed to spread fear and anxiety

Back-masking: you can’t always hear what you want

During the Satanic Panic, paranoia that rock music included sinister messages via 'back-masking' made it all the way into the courtroom

The recent New Jersey drone scare tells us a lot about how panics spread

The New Jersey drone scare is a perfect case study in how panics seize on oddities and unfounded speculation in order to spread fear

The wealthy, conservative American Christian groups pushing anti-abortion protests in the UK

"Woman arrested for praying" is the latest in a string of legal cases used by US conservative Christian organisations to fight against progress in the UK

The Satanic Panic and the McMartin pre-school trial

In 1983, lurid and extreme tales of abuse emerged from a pre-school in California; the allegations were false, as was the rest of the Satanic Panic
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