NBC News reports that China’s coronavirus outbreak is causing fear-mongering and racial stereotyping to go viral online.
Posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, many containing videos, are being shared way more than news about the outbreak.
Some use stereotypes of Asian people eating mice and bats and say this caused the outbreak. According to the NBC report, even when confronted about debunked stereotypes, people circulating the reports justified them because they drive web traffic.
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