Epidemics bring out the best and worst of social media.
In the past two months, I have seen pseudo-scientific “cures” for the Covid-19 proliferating on WeChat, conspiracy theorists on Gab propagating various “truths” about the source of the outbreak, and young Tik Tokers video-sharing “funny” memes about the virus.
On the flipside, I have witnessed the development of numerous campaigns fighting back against a parallel epidemic of #coronaracism. Since knowledge of the outbreak first occurred, disheartening incidents have been reported in Australia, Europe, and the US of people of east Asian appearance being verbally abused, kicked off public transport, denied entrance to shops, spat on and even violently attacked.
Even as I write this, there are reports of attendees at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s hospital refusing to allow Asian doctors to treat their kids.
less than 0.001% of chinese people have coronavirus yet more than 99.999% have already experienced coronaracism
— Ken Cheng (@kenchengcomedy) January 28, 2020
“Less than 0.001% of Chinese people have coronavirus, yet more than 99.999% have already experienced coronaracism.” This quote from British-born Chinese comedian Ken Cheng underlines pervasive and indiscriminate nature of the racism stemming from this outbreak.
In January 2020, the hashtag #JeNeSuisPasUnVirus was coined by the French Asian community on Twitter in response to a spate of racially motivated attacks in the country.
Following a successful debut on the French Twittersphere, this hashtag campaign was quickly translated into English, German, Italian, Spanish and appeared across various platforms. On Instagram, for instance, Taiwanese-Spanish musician Chenta Tsai posted a picture of the phrase scrawled across his torso on the runways of Madrid Fashion Week. The campaign has even prompted a Chinese band to published an EP – Wo bushi Bingdu (“I am not a virus” in Chinese).
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In Australia, where 5.6% of the population can claim Chinese ancestry (census 2016), journalist Avani Dias introduced the #DontDumpTheDumplings hashtag on 13 February, calling on Australians to continue to frequent their local Chinese restaurants, whose businesses have reportedly suffered tremendous losses due to lack of patronage.
Only a few days later, progressive political activist group GetUp launched a campaign with the same intention on Instagram and Twitter. Their hashtag #iwilleatwithyou borrows its nomenclature from the successful anti-Islamophobia campaign following the 2014 Sydney Lindt cafe siege.
As a member of the Chinese diaspora who has experienced xenophobia amid the outbreak myself, I find all of these aforementioned social media campaigns uplifting.
However, these campaigns face many obstacles, two of which are fear-spreading and rumour-mongering.
In times of crisis, fear fosters discrimination. During epidemics, avoidance and stigmatisation of out-groups are common strategies of collective coping. Anthropological and historical accounts of past epidemics provide plenty of evidence of fear “legitimising” collective discrimination against minorities and other “outsiders”. For instance, during the 1853 yellow fever epidemic in America, Irish and German immigrants were blamed as the cause. In the 1916 major outbreak of polio in New York City, Italian immigrants were accused of bringing the epidemic to the US.
During the early phases of the outbreak of Covid-19, the denigration and blaming of groups deemed responsible for the outbreak was already plain to see within China.
Shortly after the new coronavirus outbreak in Hubei province was officially declared by Chinese authorities in January, discriminatory rhetoric and attacks against people from the region began to emerge online and in public. For instance, pictures of banners stigmatising people travelling back home from Hubei went viral on social media. A widely circulated picture shows a banner in Shanghai with the message: “People coming back from Hubei are all time bombs”.
湖北人看清楚了:
— 摄影与诗歌 (@kokokneuc) February 7, 2020
不是美国人歧视你，
不是日本人歧视你，
是共产党引导中国人歧视你们 pic.twitter.com/xa6Yc9RIT0
Sensationalist media coverage of the outbreak works to further exacerbate existing fears, including some deliberately pandering to xenophobic stereotypes or peddling popular rumours.
Perhaps the most widely publicised example of the latter was the emergence of a video of “a Chinese woman indulging in the apparently common practice of eating fruit bat soup”.
Although this video has been debunked, it is still circulated online, promoting the narrative that Chinese people deserve their affliction by dint of their “disgusting” eating habits.
A more recent example of misinformation fuelling xenophobia is the conspiracy theory claiming the latest Covid-19 outbreak in Italy is caused by Chinese “big pharma” and government who deliberately sent virus carriers to Europe.
Fear, rumour and xenophobia are three intimated linked issues, and one sustains the other. As the outbreaks continue to spread, so do panic, new rumours and tension across communities. As of Thursday, Covid-19 has reached 40 countries. As the world is preparing for a pandemic, maybe we should also prepare for combating a #coronaracism pandemic so we can all fight the virus in solidarity.
Dr Jing Zeng is a senior research and teaching associate at the University of Zurich
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