Things TFG made worse
By 
Advocacy on social media is not without risks. In a survey conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic, 23.3% of physicians reported personal attacks on social media, primarily for public health advocacy on topics including firearms, vaccinations, and abortion access. While the Surgeon General encourages physicians and scientists to use social media to address misinformation, concerns for harassment remain.
The U.S. has a grand old tradition of harassing, attacking and even murdering health care providers. Because the harassers tend to be white, the general public doesn’t seem to mind too much.
When COVID-19 hit the U.S., it wasn’t surprising that assholes attacked experts who had the audacity to give us advice on how not to avoid getting sick. However, the President of the United States of America – a gross excrescence of a person who divided his time between ranting on Twitter, playing golf and showing state secrets to the highest bidders – was one of the assholes. And his supporters could then indulge in two of their favorite activities: kissing his ass and ganging up on people.
Result:
Of 1028 survey views, 359 respondents met the inclusion criteria. … In all, 238 respondents (66%) reported harassment on social media.
Of these individuals, 210 (88%) reported harassment due to advocacy, 107 (45%) reported harassment on the basis of gender, 65 (27%) race or ethnicity, 31 (13%) sexual orientation, 15 (6%) due to disability, and 74 (31%) due to other self-described reasons. Women and other genders were more likely than men to report harassment based on gender (88 [67%] and 7 [58%] vs 12 [13%], respectively; P < .001). Additionally, 9 of 11 Black respondents (82%) reported harassment based on race or ethnicity vs 14 of 27 Asian respondents (52%) and 26 of 174 White respondents (15%) (P < .001). Harassment based on race or ethnicity was reported by 9 of 13 (69%) Hispanic respondents vs 56 of 225 (25%) non-Hispanic respondents (P < .001).
Of 359 respondents, 228 (64%) reported harassment related to comments made about the COVID-19 pandemic, 111 (31%) reported being sexually harassed, and 66 (18%) reported their private information had been shared (ie, doxxing). One hundred forty-four respondents provided open-ended responses. Representative themes of harassment are shown in Table 2, which highlights extreme threats and impacts on mental health. A total of 228 of 359 participants (64%) reporting any online harassment reported the pandemic changed the way that they use social media. Those using social media to post public health messages were more likely than those who did not to report online harassment (220 of 313 [70%] vs 18 of 46 [39%]; P < .001).
And Republicans are ready and willing to make it even worse when the next pandemic hits the U.S.
People who post off-topic comments are COVID truthers.
