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Comment by fallinghawks | Hacker News Reader

There have been several instances where the QAnon types (e.g. Marjorie Taylor Greene) have baselessly accused mass murder suspects of being trans, or incorrectly accusing trans people of being the culprit in a violent incident. There is good reason to try to protect a vulnerable group as it can result in ostracization and violence against people who have nothing to do with the violent incident and are only connected by being a member of that group.

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But do you think the media ignoring the connection makes the situation better or worse? I feel like it feeds into the bigoted narratives like "x group is doing y crimes and the media doesn't want you to know!".

I agree with this idea and line of thinking, and it's well-intentioned but it comes with its own costs. There's a risk that over time, people might start to feel like they're being gaslit by a media conspiracy, and this feeling may build up until eventually society snaps into an extreme backlash, which may be worse than the original prejudice.

Present events feel like one example of this.

I think a similar thing happened with COVID; early on the media and government went hard on filtering information, in order to suppress anti-asian discrimination (as a sibling commenter mentions) or to prevent shortages of masks, but it ended up like squeezing a water balloon. Trying to control public opinion this way might have had short-term success but caused all sorts of radical conspiracy outbursts and a loss of trust in institutions.

So as a long term strategy, it might just not work that well.

I see what you're saying. Perhaps an upfront messaging would have been sensible, e.g. stating that Americans of Asian descent have no connection to this virus. But I'm unsure of how much effect it would have on bigots who will be bigots. During that administration bigots were emboldened, as they are even more so during this one.

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