Talk:Moral panic

Merge Social panic into Moral panic?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This Social panic article has very thin sourcing, and the topic appears to be a subset (or instance of) moral panic.

This article uses as a key source the book " According to Folk Devils and Moral Panics" and the lead has this sentence: According to Folk Devils and Moral Panics by Stanley Cohen, ...

This Social panic article also includes: Angela McRobbie and Sarah Thornton claim that Stanley Cohen's work on moral panic is outdated and argue that... Again indicating that the source(s) and editors feel that social panic is either the same as or a subset of moral panic.

This Social panic article has seven (7) sources. Six (6) of the seven have the phrase "moral panic" in the title; none have the phrase "social panic" in the title.

I'm sure that "social panic" is a phrase that is used by some sociologists in some circumstances, but clearly "moral panic" is the more common phrase, and "social panic" is treated by most sources as the same as "moral panic" or perhaps a type of moral panic.

The Social panic article is small-ish: 1,600 prose words; Moral panic is 5,484 prose words, adding Social panic into Moral panic would bring the latter to about 7,000 words, well under the 9,000 quasi-limit in WP:SIZERULE.

Summary: Reader of Wikipedia would be better served if there was a single article that covered both Moral panic & Social panic. Perhaps a new section "Social panic" could be added to Moral panic and Social panic could redirect to there? Noleander (talk) 14:13, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Removal of George Floyd moral panic.

My addition of the George Floyd purported moral panic was removed with comment "Rv what appear to be PoV-pushing and editorialising 'examples', sourced to opinion pieces etc. You'll clearly need talk page consensus to include this"

What is or is not considered moral panic is subjective. My opening line "Some commentators have compared the worldwide demonstrations and online reaction to the murder of George Floyd in 2020 to a moral panic," addresses this. It is a factually correct line and nowhere in my writing did I take an editorial position either way. Newfoundlandguy (talk) 22:56, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

One way to resolve this situtation is if the "adding" editor (Newfoundlandguy) could post some quotes here from the sources: quotes that describe the George Floyd-related incidents as a "moral panic" (or use similar phrasing). From the quotes, other editors should be able to help reach consensus on if the material belongs in the article. (Note: I have not yet looked at the material that was added/removed). Noleander (talk) 23:04, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

"it’s metastasizing into something dangerous, not on the streets where righteous Americans are protesting actual police brutality, but in the media and on Twitter, where we are experiencing a full-on moral panic." https://forward.com/opinion/448667/how-our-growing-consensus-against-racism-turned-into-a-moral-panic/

"These metrics also apply to a mobbing that took place last June in Toronto, at the height of the moral panic following the wholly awful Minnesota police killing of George Floyd." https://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-text-messages-exonerate-jessica-mulroney-after-she-was-cancelled-last-summer

"What ensued was a full-blown moral panic outwardly driven by “the visual quintessence of a centuries-long and cancerous history,” but that quickly came to be a mirror of fashionable identity politics and a zeal to blacklist anyone who did not accept the premises of the panic." https://www.commentary.org/articles/brian-stewart/summer-2020-covid-george-floyd/

"But one institution of higher learning has taken a tentative but crucial step back from the woke promises it made at the height of the BLM moral panic." https://www.newsweek.com/penn-state-takes-step-back-moral-panic-about-racism-opinion-1772321 Newfoundlandguy (talk) 23:19, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the quotes & sources. The sources certainly use the phrase "moral panic". The sources are a bit on the opinionated side. Versus "it was a a moral panic" being presented as a solid fact a peer reviewed journal or the NY times or BBC.

For this kind of material, guidelines such as WP:POV and WP:YESPOV are useful. They suggest that the material could perhaps be included in the article if: (a) the sources were named in the article; and (b) the assertion that it was a moral panic were presented as an opinion rather than fact.

Example: Fact if solidly supported by neutral, acadmic sources: The protest on date ABC was an instance of a moral panic. Versus: Journalists/analysts presenting an anaysis or viewpoint: Batya Ungar-Sargon, columnist for The Forward interprets the protests on date ABC as a moral panic, based on ..

Also, if there are any contrary viewpoints (it was not a moral panic) they would need to be included. Noleander (talk) 23:35, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

fwiw since people throw around "moral panic" a lot, the standard to add and example to this article has long been peer reviewed academic research. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:33, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Can you provide a link to the discussion where that consensus was reached? Noleander (talk) 23:36, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

(edit-conflicted reply) What is or is not considered moral panic is subjective. Indeed. Which is why we need to be careful about not imposing our own subjectivity into an article by cherry-picking amongst sources to support the claim that discourse around a particular event constituted 'moral panic'. And I'd have to contend that the edit in question did exactly that. As our article on the George Floyd protests makes clear, there was (and is) a great deal of debate about the reaction to Floyd's murder, and picking through the reams of editorials and other opinion pieces generated during this debate looking for commentary describing it as 'moral panic' will inevitably skew things in one direction. More so when the sources seem to be chosen from a rather narrow political perspective of commentary. Some of the material added seemed also to be wandering well off-topic too - e.g. the bit about 'cancel culture' sourced to a mention in passing of Floyd's murder in a National Post article on a much broader subject, and to a highly-dubious claim about "universities abandoning traditionally politically neutral stances and adopting critical race theory as part of their core principles" sourced to a Newsweek opinion piece that clearly isn't based around any objective attempt to assess what universities have actually been doing. I'd recommend reading what WP:NEWSWEEK (an evaluation on WP:RSNP) has to say regarding community consensus on the latter, and based on that would have to suggest that we can't base content making such sweeping claims on what is clearly a heavily PoV-pushing commentary piece. Floyd's murder, and the subsequent reactions to it generated so much commentary that it is entirely possible to find support for more or less any political or analytical position one wishes to take, but that isn't how Wikipedia is supposed to do it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:41, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Echoing ATG above; the issue is the quality of the sources. The page has approached the subject from a specifically high quality standard - relying on verified sources, from experts, about the subject matter. While custom and practice aren't the be-all and end-all of a page, the introduction of articles below that standard is incredibly jarring - particularly very poor articles. The actual articles themselves are dubious at best, and often undercut their whole argument by themselves doing a culture war / moral panic dance. For instance Ungar-Sargon frames it not as the actual thing happening, but instead some strident people on the internet - while then quoting Senator Cotton advocating sending troops in against protestors with "no quarter":

What makes this a moral panic is not the magnificent peaceful protests happening in the streets but the battle on Twitter against a side that’s no longer there and, absent actual racists to fight, has turned on people who want to know how others think, or who uncover facts that don’t fit the narrative.

The Mulroney article from National Post mentions the phrase once, with no meaningful usage, and is used to contextualise a spat between two people.

These metrics also apply to a mobbing that took place last June in Toronto, at the height of the moral panic following the wholly awful Minnesota police killing of George Floyd. On May 31, the mobbing of PR/marketer and stylist Jessica Mulroney was seeded when Black Toronto influencer Sasha Exeter put a call-to-action video on her Instagram (IG) feed, directing followers to post anti-racism messages in solidarity with Black Lives Matter (BLM). Although Jessica follows Sasha, they were not friends. Their professional paths occasionally crossed, because both had partnerships with similar fashion and lifestyle brands.

The Commentary.org article is unclear if the single mention of the phrase is attributable to the subject (the book) the author of the book, or the author of the article - but it shifts very quickly from the ideal of a Moral Panic about the thing that happened, to some other things that happened subsequently.

What ensued was a full-blown moral panic outwardly driven by “the visual quintessence of a centuries-long and cancerous history,” but that quickly came to be a mirror of fashionable identity politics and a zeal to blacklist anyone who did not accept the premises of the panic.

The Newsweek op-ed meanwhile exhibits more qualities of an attempt to create a moral panic itself than the supposed moral panic in question. Paradoxically there is no consensus that the "Moral Panic" had anything to do with CRT (a longstanding subject of study), and its entirely Tobins opinion, as he rails against CRT, DEI and other "woke commissars". Koncorde (talk) 23:42, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Happy to delete the Newsweek source if it is no longer considered reliable.

What makes this a moral panic is not the magnificent peaceful protests happening in the streets but the battle on Twitter against a side that’s no longer there

Happy to rephrase so it's the online reaction not the protests themselves that are the source of the moral panic.

The Mulroney article from National Post mentions the phrase once

The Commentary.org article is unclear if the single mention of the phrase is attributable to the subject

The Guardian article (more like an Opinion piece) from the human trafficking "example" also mentions moral panic only once, in the title. (https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/20/trafficking-numbers-women-exaggerated)

This article in the AIDS "example" does not use the word moral panic even once, yet is for some reason used to definitely say that it was a moral panic: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/sexual-health-and-advice/9715372/HIVAids-treatment-has-come-a-long-way-in-the-West.html

This reference in the African gangs "example" mentions moral panic only once, in reference to another source: https://cmy.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Dont-Drag-Me-Into-This-Research-Report-Oct-2018-FINAL.pdf

This reference in the Qanon "example" only mentions moral panic once, and that is in reference to the Satanic panic, not Qanon (https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/node/14128)

There are plenty more examples of references either not supporting any evidence that the thing in question was a moral panic or even mentioning moral panic at all. I think what we have here is a case of different standards being applied, for what I can only guess are political reasons, which is ironic given I'm the one being accused of inserting my political point of view into Wikipedia.

I don't see my case being supported in this environment so I'm not going to waste any more of my time. Newfoundlandguy (talk) 01:14, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Generally speaking, 'this article already doesn't conform to policy, so we should add more of the same' isn't a very convincing argument. As for 'different standards', clearly everyone will have differing opinions on what is or isn't appropriate when it comes to subjective issues. Which is why we have policies, and why, despite said policies, we still have to debate things. Still, if you want to leave it at that, you are free to do so - though I'd recommend reading the notification I left on your talk page regarding controversial topics, and try to avoid personalising such issues in future. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:23, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Regarding current sourcing; each section includes multiple sources that are research papers from subject matter experts which are the actual foundations of those paragraphs. The individual sources mentioned by Newfoundlandguy are misrepresenting their purpose of use. For example, The Guardians Nick Davies is an investigative reporter, award winning, and he is talking specifically about the moral panic of human trafficking. Its not just a case of a single mention, its the significance of the entire article. The Mulroney article in contrast is about a spat between two people. BLM / Moral Panic is mentioned, but the actual subject matter itself isn't meaningfully about the "Post-George Floyd racism panic", particularly as its talking about something happening contemporaneously to the protests (all but ruling out "Post-George Floyd" as a context).

Regarding The Telegraph, the article is used to demonstrate not a "Moral Panic", but to provide context for a prominent advertisement by the government.

African gangs moral panic has more details contained within it, but the "Dont Drag Me Into This" is provided for context of the claim it was centred on the supposed presence of Sudanese-Australian criminal gangs and specifically the claims that were made in the media etc that led to the "Moral Panic" framing.

QAnon I'll give you a pass on. The article itself itself frames QAnon as creating conditions "like" the satanic panic of the 80's, rather than being a moral panic itself (something I would say is difficult to claim given QAnon is not a majority opinion etc) therefore not "widespread" outside of the confines of the internet.

But, no, this isn't about politics - just random articles using the term in opinion pieces is not an authoritative reliable source. Koncorde (talk) 20:38, 29 October 2025 (UTC)