Individuals are flooding New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s social distancing tip line with expletive-laden messages, many of which criticize him for his handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
The mayor recently encouraged New Yorkers to report on each other if they see someone violating social distancing guidelines, which has led to backlash in the form of nasty messages, according to the New York Post.
“We will fight this tyrannical overreach!” one user of the tip line said to the service, which triggered an automatic response of, “Hello, and thank you for texting NYC311.”
“F— you!” another user replied, according to the New York Post, along with a meme of Adolf Hitler saying, “TO THOSE TURNING IN YOUR NEIGHBORS AND LOCAL BUSINESSES — YOU DID THE REICH THING.”
Other profane messages involving male genitalia, extended middle fingers, and messages criticizing the mayor’s response to the virus were also reported.
De Blasio has been criticized after he defended his decision to ignore his own stay-at-home order to travel 11 miles to a park to take a walk every day and also visited a gym after telling others not to do so.
“Since I’m encouraging New Yorkers to go on with your lives + get out on the town despite Coronavirus, I thought I would offer some suggestions,” de Blasio tweeted on March 2, over a month after President Trump had banned travel from China in an attempt to help stop the spread of the virus.
The mayor of New York was encouraging people to out and party 3 weeks ago—when ten Italian municipalities were already on lock-down from Coronavirus https://t.co/yTRkIhCYV9
— Avi Asher-Schapiro (@AASchapiro) March 25, 2020
There have been more than 250,000 coronavirus cases in New York state and nearly 15,000 deaths.
Nationwide protests have broken out in defiance of coronavirus lockdown orders that have prevented people from working.
