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New York City is one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus. With more than 140,000 confirmed cases in the city, officials have struggled to contain the spread, focusing on social distancing efforts to keep from overwhelming hospitals.
Over the weekend, Mayor de Blasio took these efforts to the next level, requesting citizens to report businesses and neighbors not following the guideline via a tipline. The program has been in place since late March, but it was de Blasio's video on Twitter that got the line on some users' radar.
How do you report places that aren’t enforcing social distancing? It’s simple: just snap a photo and text it to 311-692. #AskMyMayor pic.twitter.com/WQdCcVf1Rl
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) April 18, 2020
However, the New York City Mayor did not anticipate the city's aversion to one thing: snitching. No, some of de Blasio's constituents did not approve of the mayor asking them to report their fellow New Yorkers.
With a flood of memes evoking nazism, authoritarianism and posts about the mayor's disastrous 2020 Groundhog's Day celebration, Twitter users attacked the policy. Users gave de Blasio a "bag of dicks," reflected on the time de Blasio dropped a groundhog and sent the tipline a host of memes in a series of texts over the next week.
Start flooding their reporting text number with these pics! pic.twitter.com/Sek203VVba
— Morgan L Schmidt (@MorganLSchmidt1) April 18, 2020
It's urgent! pic.twitter.com/IUKcO3mm3A
— libertarian THOT 🤯 (@LibertyLockPod) April 18, 2020
— Molly Jong-Fast🏡 (@MollyJongFast) April 18, 2020
— Lizzy Lou Who 🇺🇸 (@_wintergirl93) April 18, 2020
I did my part pic.twitter.com/Md5WmVmXZG
— Derek Hughes (@drocknit33) April 18, 2020
Hello, is this the Karen hotline? I’d like to report pic.twitter.com/frwz7dbeea
— J (@cereal_kilah) April 18, 2020
Still, despite the memes and alleged dick pics, New York City has received more than 14,000 complaints about violations, according to the Wall Street Journal. They write:
New York City residents submitted 14,000 complaints to the city’s police about people violating social-distancing rules enacted to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, but they have led to relatively few summonses and arrests, records show.
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