Talk:Grooming gang moral panic in the United Kingdom

Proposed Deletion

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived: IP editors from news article reopening old convos. Just make a new section.

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When "84% of researchers say that grooming gang members were Asian" it is important that we do not try to hide uncomfortable facts and history.

I vote not to delete this page. Johnmars3 (talk) 05:40, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

They were Muslim, mainly Pakistani. Asian gives the impression that they might be Chinese or Thai. 79.155.74.100 (talk) 15:01, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

"Asian" in the UK includes middle eastern and south Asian people. 2603:9001:2900:4D01:F0A8:C2FF:5F56:F19B (talk) 15:17, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Just so new comments don't keep getting added to this two month old discussion, the deletion was contested, there was a discussion about it and ultimately the article was kept.

If you're looking to comment on the article as it currently looks you should look to the thread lower down in the page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:22, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

This page is a rather blatant attempt to manufacture a narrative, whitewashing/minimizing the phenomenon of Asian/Muslim grooming gangs in the UK with a misleading title and introduction which are not supported by the rest of the page or the majority of sources. Only a single source refers to this as a "panic" of any sort. It is telling that the first reference to any actual data, in the second paragraph, reads "Some statistical analysis...", meanwhile the rest of the article indicates that the majority of "statistical analyses" unambiguously imply that Asian Muslims are overrepresented among group-based child sexual abuse perpetrators, including the Home Office study which, as detailed in the article, was misleadingly interpreted in line with the false narrative of this page. In modern parlance, this page is misinformation/disinformation and therefore should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lp9mm8g (talk • contribs) 15:10, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Support. This page is worse than pointless. It seeks to obfuscate. Riposte97 (talk) 20:26, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

References

Renamed page

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived: IP editors from news article reopening old convos. Just make a new section.

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The title of this page has been changed from 'Muslim grooming gang panic' to 'South Asian Muslim grooming gang panic'. However, the sources referred to throughout the article do not refer this phenomenon as "South Asian Muslim grooming gangs"' but rather "Asian grooming gangs", "Muslim grooming gangs" or "Pakistani grooming gangs". After a quick Google search, I was also unable to find the term 'South Asian grooming gang' receiving mass usage. I believe this may be because Asian typically already refers to South Asians in the UK so it does not need further specification. The term is also inappropriate as it excludes perpetrators from regions outside of South Asia such as Afghans, Iranians, Iraqis, Kurds, Turks, Egyptians, Moroccans and Albanians who have been involved in notable cases. Given this, changing the page name may be in breach of WP:NOR or WP:NPOV. Kioj156 (talk) 19:27, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Get the title changed back to what is was, a gang of Muslims grooming children. Anything other than the truth is an insult to the victims. 2A00:23EE:1768:16CE:8DCE:64D3:B5BD:F6ED (talk) 14:57, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, it's not a moral panic, the facts support justifed concern. Moral panic implies there is nothing to be outraged about Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 15:20, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

This thread is two month out of date, new discussion about the article are happy +happening+ lower down in the page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:24, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 16:38, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Grooming gangs

Grooming gang moral panic in the United Kingdom - Right-wing and far-right activists. is an incorrect title as 'gangs have been found guilty of thee offence "A report from the Home Office was unable to prove any link between sexual assault and South Asian ethnicity. White perpetrators, who make up the majority race in the UK, have been shown to be more represented in sexual assault and group-based sexual abuse crimes than any other ethnicity in the United Kingdom. The report suggests there is likely no connection between ethnic groups and child sexual abuse. Despite the lack of evidence, British media outlets have reinforced the stereotype by disproportionately reporting on South Asian group-based sexual assault crimes at the expense of other similar cases involving White abusers" This is untrue 2A0A:EF40:915:4D01:F4A0:EF8E:630D:85EC (talk) 14:20, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Of course a 70-80% white country has more white group based abusers. The question is over per-capita, to which even the home office said: "Some studies suggest an over-representation of Black and Asian offenders relative to the demographics of national populations" on

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65174096

The judgement that public concern over what is a documented cultural phenomena is a "panic", which wikipedia defines "exaggerate the seriousness, extent, typicality and/or inevitability of harm" is very political

Wikipedia keeps damaging its credibility through politically captured editorialising. Reverting the unilateral interpretation of the public reaction as a "moral panic" would help undo this latest damage 2A01:4B00:8697:7300:C09F:E22F:88D5:C369 (talk) 16:10, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I am not certain what you mean by this. Do you believe your quotation is untrue or are you attempting to provide a citation? If you disagree with the quotation, try to find a wp:reliablesource and get the consensus of other editors. --Cmrc23 (talk) 16:10, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

The quote is accurate but selective. I have provided a quote from the same report acknowledging that other reports have found over-representation.

We can agree that this means whether or not there is overrepresentation of ethnic minorities in perpetration of group based child sexual offending is contested.

Given this contestation, it is inappropriate for Wikipedia to interject a political interpretation that the public reaction is a "moral panic". Wikipedia has a policy against Original Research and others that I'm sure are intended to stop this kind of titular framing? 2A01:4B00:8697:7300:C09F:E22F:88D5:C369 (talk) 17:19, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand. This is not "wikipedia" doing this, but instead this consensus was reached by a group of volunteer editors. You can review their discussions on this topic above. I hope this clears things up for you! --Cmrc23 ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ 17:26, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I would like to note that this article has been linked by multiple far right personalities on various social media sites, and many of the commenters expressed a desire to artificially create accounts and get them to extended-confirmed to manipulate the article. Pinging relevant admins: @Black Kite @S Marshall Cmrc23 ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ 06:52, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I put this in the wrong section, meant to move it further down. I apologise. I can move it if needed Cmrc23 ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ 06:53, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

• People are welcome to make accounts and contribute to Wikipedia. People from the political right are particularly welcome because they're not very well-represented here. Edits that reflect what the academic sources say about this are also welcome. Edits that are unsourced or based on non-academic sources are less welcome and might well be reverted.—S Marshall T/C 07:11, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  @S Marshall thanks, I'm pretty unfamiliar with wikipedia articles going viral so I don't know the standard practice Cmrc23 ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ 07:30, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  Don't worry. If the redditors and the blog readers start brigading here, the community will see that and deal with it. We're good at that because we've had a lot of practice. Sourced edits by people who care about accuracy and honesty are welcome.—S Marshall T/C 07:43, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  @S Marshall Thank you Cmrc23 ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ 07:47, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Challenge of "Moral Panic" title change closure moved to user talk page.

Can be found here. User talk:Sceptre#c-Bluetik-20241008143000-Contesting Grooming Gangs "Moral Panic" Closure

Also worth noting: https://www.gbnews.com/news/outrage-as-wikipedia-changes-grooming-gangs-article-to-moral-panic-from-the-far-right Bluetik (talk) 14:32, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I'll put this on the talk page press template. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 14:33, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps someone should explain to GB news that "panic" was in the original title of this article. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 14:39, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I didn't take part in the last move discussion but I would have support some kind of change, as the article had been hijacked. It was originally on the moral panic about these events, but was hijacked to be about the events themselves. There are already articles about Rotherham, Telford and sexual abuse in the UK, it's not like the details of them are being surpressed in anyway whatsoever. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:36, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Muslim_grooming_gangs_in_the_United_Kingdom&redirect=no

That would be a fantastic point if “Muslim Grooming Gangs in the UK” didn’t link to this page 148.252.141.204 (talk) 15:40, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

That redirect only exists because it was the name this article was renamed to after it was hijacked. If you want to know about grooming gangs you can look to the Wikipedia article Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom#Group based child sexual exploitation, or one of the very detailed articles about specific abuse case such as Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal or Telford child sexual exploitation scandal. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:59, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Also, I'm pretty sure that's the wrong place to contest a move? its a somewhat new user attempting to contest, so does it really matter? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 14:37, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

It's just a notification that it's been contested on the talk page of the closer, which is the correct place to first contest the close. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:39, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

oh. i'm a bit of a newbie/intermediate user too.. guess i should stop throwing rocks while i live in a glass castle or however that saying goes Bluethricecreamman (talk) 14:40, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

• The gbnews article explains the recent surge in disruption. M.Bitton (talk) 14:42, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

  And it's tone. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:45, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, that people take GB News as a serious news source and not as a British attempt to replicate Fox News – which is what it was founded to be! – has always been beyond me. Indeed, I'm surprised that it's not listed at WP:RSPS as unreliable, although I suspect anytime it's been up at WP:RSN people have been like "yeah, it's shit". Sceptre (talk) 14:57, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

  it very much is opinion first as per GB News.... if used for anything, its primarily WP:OPINION. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:43, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm happy to have the informal post-close discussion here, FWIW. Anyway: we already have articles about specific incidents; e.g. Rochdale child sex abuse ring. We also have an article which talks about CSA in general; e.g. Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom. Throughout the AFD and the RMs, there was also a large undercurrent of concern that, without great care, the article would end up as a coatrack compiling cases where the gangs were Muslim but not where the gangs were of another ethnicity, which would run counter to how the subject of "Muslim grooming gangs" is treated in RSes; i.e. gang-based child sexual abuse happens regardless of ethnicity, and the focus on ethnicity is what forms a moral panic. I know the close wouldn't have been popular with the online far-right, and my Twitter mentions are a trash-fire of transphobic harassment at the moment, but we have never closed discussions on Wikipedia based on how external forces would take it. I feel my close is one that, even if you don't agree with it, is one that's well-reasoned and neutral. Sceptre (talk) 14:54, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

from the move discussion: Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page.

Maybe they can be separate articles, one on the issues with the media response described as a "Moral Panic," and one on the events themselves. Bluetik (talk) 15:32, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

and this is not in response to the article. It is in response to seeing the changes. Bluetik (talk) 15:33, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

For the events themselves see Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom#Group based child sexual exploitation, Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal, Telford child sexual exploitation scandal, or other such similar articles.

There has been, and there are, articles about the events. This article was created to summarise sources that discuss the moral panic, but was hijacked and renamed. Unfortunately GB News is only highlighting one part of what has happened, giving a false impression that any of the details of sexual abuse or grooming have been somehow surpressed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:06, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I think if anything the "moral panic" angle should be a subsection of this page Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom#Group based child sexual exploitation

given that its clearly very controversial, presenting as fact the idea that this was an overblown "moral panic" seems reckless and innaccurate Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 16:40, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Welcome to this article. If you are coming here off the back of news coverage, you might like to note there has been rather a lot of careful discussion that you might like to peruse to bring yourself up to speed. Redirecting or merging the moral panic aspect to Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom#Group based child sexual exploitation might have been an outcome of the deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Muslim grooming gangs in the United Kingdom but consensus was judged to be against that, and no consensus was found in the deletion review here [1], so the article remains and cannot just be moved there. But as noted above, the article as written here was always about the moral panic. The consensus appears to be that we should have this article, as originally intended and under this name. I doubt a review of that decision will achieve any other outcome, but consensus can change, so a new discussion could be considered in the future. I would caution waiting a while before initiating one though. Perhaps get up to speed on what has already been said, and feel free to contribute to the discussion. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 17:29, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there a reason why the loaded term "moral panic" was used, rather than something neutral like "concerns"?

According to Britannica, a moral panic is a "phrase used in sociology to describe an artificially created panic or scare." Amazingkiwi (talk) 17:28, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

The part that constitutes the moral panic is the racial/ethnic element. There is a problem with child sexual abuse in society – just look at the post-Savile revelations – but it permeates all of society. Sceptre (talk) 17:42, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I think what @Amazingkiwi is saying though is that moral panic as a term is usually reserved for things that have no real danger, ie Satanic panics or scaremongering about goths. There were hundreds of incidents of vulnerable girls being sexually assaulted all over the UK, therefore fears are surely more justified, I don't think you've sufficiently explained why the racial element is an unfounded fear. Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 22:11, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

that is not a policy minded argument for challenging the move.

Besides, previous moral panics with "real danger":

• HIV/AIDs
• Sex offenders in general
• LGBTQ Conspiracy Theory

I'm open to changing the title, but i consider the current title fairly neutral, as much of the reliable sourcing indicates that though South Asian men can groom, issue is so does everyone else in the UK (especially white men), just the media focuses on the South Asian men. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 22:25, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

If we want to do policy based:

• WP:5P2 clearly states that all language should be neutral. Intimating a moral panic where there is evidence of serious harm is not neutral language.
• WP:NOTADVOCACY Labelling this a moral panic is a clear case of advocacy of a certain viewpoint. You or I may agree with that, but downplaying the nature of concerns about this is clearly an act of advocacy.
• WP:BATTLEGROUND Choosing this title for this page is clearly intended to provoke a response, something that we've seen today with the GB News and Unherd as examples. Titling the article this way instead of a moral neutral title has brought the page into disrepute.

Also one of the "reliable sources" quoted (citation 9) says clearly that the data is unreliable [2] "The problem is that the data is from only 19 out of more than 40 police forces and nearly a decade old." Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 22:36, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Luckily, we have a bunch of policies in place that prevent bad jokes like "GB News" from being taken seriously. M.Bitton (talk) 22:44, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

From BBC [3]

• "But the suggestion that the ethnic background of the perpetrators plays an important part in abuse by gangs is hard to support, at least based on the current evidence."
• "Research has found that group-based child sexual exploitation offenders are most commonly white."
• "Some studies suggest an over-representation of Black and Asian offenders relative to the demographics of national populations."

I'm happy to include info that some studies suggest an overrepresentation (and I think there is some info about that). However, the burden of proof for suggesting that a certain ethnicity is inherently more likely to be sexual predators is on those with the accusation. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 22:51, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

All the data given in government report suggest that Asians are over-represented (as given further down), although the argument given is that the data are incomplete or of poor quality, and the report made the claim the numbers involved are more likely to be consistent with the general population. The 2020 report, however, give no evidence at all that Asians involved are consistent with the general population. Hzh (talk) 07:59, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Bluethricecreamman said the burden of proof for suggesting that a certain ethnicity is inherently more likely to be sexual predators is on those with the accusation. and your response was All the data given in government report suggest that Asians are over-represented which suggests you did not find that elephant in the room. Why are you talking about the over representation of Asians? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:09, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Stop making vague insinuation. If you want to point out the elephant in the room whatever that may be, then do so. Discussion is not for playing guessing game. The point the government report made is that the data are incomplete or of poor quality (which I mentioned multiple times), but it gave no evidence at all that the numbers reflect the general population. Hzh (talk) 08:19, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

The source quite clearly says,

White or White British is the ethnicity of perpetrators of CSE (including groupand gang-based CSE) most frequently recorded by the police. The next largest ethnic groups are Black or Black British (17% gang and group, 8% all forms of CSE) and Asian or Asian British (14% gang and group, 10% all forms of CSE).

So Asian groups are the least represented in those sources. You, of course, attempted a bit of WP:SYNTH by accessing census data to support a conclusion not found in the source - that Asians are therefore over-represented against their population size. Which is true, but ignores the caveats on the data that collection of ethnicity data is not mandatory, and so a small skew is not particularly meaningful. Yet, if you persist in that (as you do, when you double down with dodgy attempts to rewrite the population demographics), then you really should notice that the size of the black population is 2.5%[4] (up from 1.8% in 2011 btw). So 17% gang or group CSE in that population group appears (and again, its only appearance - these data are incomplete) to be between 7 times their population representation (or 9.5 times if going by your preference for 2011 population figures). So Asians are the smallest group by number and not even close to the most over-represented. Once again, why are we talking about Asians? The answer to that last question is what this page is about. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:12, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

This article talks about Muslim grooming gangs (not blacks), so the relevant question is whether Asians are over-represented, and they certainly are in the report because most of those involved are Muslim. You can certainly legitimately talk about over-representation of black people in crime, but that is not the topic under discussion. White people are also under-represented in the data because they form the largest group in the UK, in fact significantly lower for grooming gangs (42%). And no, Asians are not the smallest group, they are the people grouped under Others. Is my "dodgy" rewrite of population figure worse than yours (which suggest including millions of people not yet born or emigrated to the UK)? Given that I repeated mentioned the data are incomplete/of poor quality, what exactly is your point, especially when my point is that the government provided zero evidence to support its claim of the number of Asian offenders reflecting the general population. (The incompleteness of the data may suggest that the real number could be better or worse).

Again, what exactly is the elephant in the room that you can see but I cannot. Hzh (talk) 09:37, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

This article talks about Muslim grooming gangs (not blacks). Wrong. This article talks about the media induced moral panic about muslim grooming gangs. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:46, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

So the discussion degenerates into silly argument about words. Do you actually think that this article is not about Muslim grooming gang? It is about Muslim grooming gangs and an alleged media-induced "moral panic". I have argued elsewhere that "grooming gang moral panic" should not be used this way here, the opinions of a few authors should not be turned into fact. You can find all kinds of alleged moral panic in papers, for example regarding Jimmy Savile - [5][6], but there is no Wiki article on "Jimmy Savile moral panic". Any such articles would be pushing a POV and not neutral.

I'm frankly astonished you think that information on the offending rate of black population is the unmentionable elephant in the room. I noticed that bit of information years ago, but chose not to say anything here because it is not relevant to this discussion. Also different data sets give different results, e.g. the 2011 report [7], it talks about 2 data sets For groups one and two combined, the ethnicity of 38% of the offenders was unknown, 30% were white, 28% Asian4 , 3% Black and 0.16% Chinese. When only group one was analysed, the offenders were found to be 38% white, 32% unknown, 26% Asian, 3% Black, and 0.2% Chinese. But in 2012 [8] - Where the ethnicity of perpetrators was provided, 545 were recorded as ‘White’, 415 were recorded as ‘Asian’, and 244 were recorded as ‘Black’ As you can see, very different data for black people, and these two show lower numbers for blacks compared to Asians. Hzh (talk) 12:43, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the article is not about Muslim grooming gangs. It is about a media induced moral panic about muslim grooming gangs. We have articles on the gangs, as has already been said. What this article is about is the fact that cherry picking a few high profile cases led to a moral panic. That you felt that the statistics backed up the claims, when they clearly don't and they say they don't, shows how society has absorbed the narrative - the very essence of moral panic. Of the two additional sources you just added (the 2011 and 2012 reports), these are, in fact, both using the same data set. This is what they say about it:

Caution should be taken in drawing conclusions about ethnicity due to the relatively small number of areas where agencies have been proactive around this particular type of crime. We do not draw national conclusions about ethnicity from the data available at this time because it is too inconsistent.

And that is what Bluethricecreamman cautioned above, saying: the burden of proof for suggesting that a certain ethnicity is inherently more likely to be sexual predators is on those with the accusation. That burden is not met. That there is a moral panic is, in fact, quite clear and studied in academic sources, and evidenced by all the chatter here. That there is a concept of a muslim grooming gang, beyond the individual cases that we cover, does not appear to be a thing at all. There is no evidence for that. We have here an article about how people look at available information and draw conclusions from this, in ignorance of wider data. See Availability bias. Availability bias is a huge issue when it comes to media narratives, and an article about that, focusing on this particular moral panic, is, I suppose, warranted (although I !voted to delete this article). What is not warranted is any attempt to make this article about anything else. If we make it what the newspapers want to say, we just become a part of the media narrative. Not an encyclopaedia but just a glorified media aggregator, parroting the media narrative. Because on that narrative, based on the lack of any evidence other than the media narrative itself, there is nothing to see here. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 13:55, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

This article is based on a few authors who argued that this is moral panic, and the first author to argue that it is "moral panic" was using a small data set using a significant smaller number of Asian offenders, yet you still think her argument is proven? The fact that a lot more cases have turned up since she wrote her polemics on "moral panic", and the Jay report said there may be over 1,400 victims in her examination of Rotherham cases, yet that is still a "moral panic"? Some of the later cases found are the biggest ever found in this country, e.g. in Huddersfield, yet this is still a "moral panic"? This is simply using "moral panic" to hide real concerns. And you and Bluethricecreamman got it completely wrong, the burden of proof does not lie with us, it lies with the author who made the assertion of "moral panic", and we cannot use the claims made by a few authors to conclude that it is a fact, when it is just an opinion.

I'm simply pointing out the fallacy involved in the argument that the data does not show that Asians are disproportionately involved, when in fact ALL the data sets released by the government I've seen do show that they are indeed disproportionately involved. The argument has been made to dismiss these data sets (as you tried to do), yet not a piece of data has been given that show Asians are not disproportionate involved. If the data are incomplete or poor in quality, it does not suggest that the offending rate of Asians are in line with the general population, because the actual data could be better, or it could be worse. Yet the government report argued it "seems most likely" to be in line with the general population, with zero data given. The same author who argued that it is about "moral panic" also used the unsupported assertion in the government report that no one ethnic group is over-represented in cases of child sexual exploitation - [9]. All very curious, when all data that show Asians are disproportionately involved are dismissed, yet claims that are based on zero data are stated as fact. Hzh (talk) 15:13, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Well you can keep asserting the data shows something the sources specifically say it does not show, but that is not going to wash here.

Caution should be taken in drawing conclusions about ethnicity due to the relatively small number of areas where agencies have been proactive around this particular type of crime. We do not draw national conclusions about ethnicity from the data available at this time because it is too inconsistent.

and

White or White British is the ethnicity of perpetrators of CSE (including group and gang-based CSE) most frequently recorded by the police. The next largest ethnic groups are Black or Black British (17% gang and group, 8% all forms of CSE) and Asian or Asian British (14% gang and group, 10% all forms of CSE).

and

Despite the severity of the offences, seventeen cases hardly constitute the alleged ‘tidal wave of offending’, a clear example of the disproportionality of the original threat, a key ingredient for any moral panic.

Your synthesis not withstanding. But that is repetitive. I'll leave it there. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 15:40, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

You haven't addressed any of the points. Quoting a bit of statistics that is about something else has no relevance to grooming gangs (and it also doesn't demonstrate the assertion to be true even if you use irrelevant population figure). Any why are you accepting a piece of polemics as fact? Just repeating a bit of polemics does not make it fact. Hzh (talk) 15:52, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

It doesn’t permeate all areas of society equally. KronosAlight (talk) 11:05, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

• I have semi-protected this talk page for a while as well. Anything coming from GBNews (as proved by today's edits) is unlikely to be constructive. Black Kite (talk) 17:36, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

  Also noting that UnHerd have covered this as well [10] Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:55, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

  The opening of that article already shows that UnHerd didn't do their research: "The title of the Wikipedia article about Muslim grooming gangs in Britain has this week been changed to include the phrase “moral panic”." The article wasn't created to be about the grooming gang, but about the moral panic surrounding them. It's visible to everyone if you go back to the original version. Cortador (talk) 05:53, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

• Moral panic is a loaded term, and should not be used in article title this way. The article title as it is is not neutral - it is created by Wiki editors and not something commonly used, therefore fails WP:NPOVTITLE. Hzh (talk) 00:30, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  I mostly wanted to pick a title when doing the requested move that was similar to the original name of the article before the original move here. Muslim grooming gangs in the United Kingdom definitely violated WP:NPOVTITLE as it is terminology mostly used by right-wing and far-right circles.

  I don't quite know what the exact right common name title for this should be, and though many sources do indicate that much of this is a manufactured crisis by the media and far-right politicians handpicking and elevating a few cases, I do recognize that only a few sources directly call it a moral panic.

  I saw some suggestions above in the original move discussion. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 00:43, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

If a loaded term is to be used in article, it needs to be something widely used (e.g. the "betting scandal" in "2024 United Kingdom general election betting scandal" is how that is commonly described as), but when I googled "Grooming gang moral panic", reports of this article name change are what I get. It is simply not something commonly used - the fact that a few authors have the opinion that reports of grooming gangs can be considered a "moral panic" doesn't change the fact that the wording "grooming gang moral panic" is rarely used. It looks to me people who wanted either "Muslim grooming gangs in the United Kingdom" or "Grooming gang moral panic in the United Kingdom" are people who wanted different articles that are centered on different things, and that is a different issue from whether the title is neutral or not. You can say something like "Reactions to grooming gangs in the UK" if you want to talk about whether the reactions to grooming gangs can be considered a moral panic or not. Maybe "Ethnicity and religion of grooming gangs in the UK" if you want to talk about the other thing.

Note also the idea of grooming gangs being a "moral panic" is just the opinion of some authors, therefore the article should not state it being a "moral panic" as a fact. Hzh (talk) 02:27, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Even now, in the reporting on this article, all the reporting is about the cases involving a certain minority. South Asian commit less than 10% of such crimes, slightly more than there percentage of the national population. But nearly all the reporting is about those crimes alone. The other 90% goes unreported or under reported.

When it comes to all child sex offences it is the white population that is other represented in offenders in comparison to the share of the national population, they also commit the majority of such crimes, and again it is unreported or under reported.

This article is about the phenomenon of mostly reporting on the crimes commited by a small section of society. It is not about the actual events, for which other articles already exist. It won't match the common name that you mention because it's not that article.

The article was hijacked after it was created and renamed. Unfortunately the news is only reporting on that being undone and not the original details. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 02:57, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I will just note that I don't think there are data that say South Asians committed less than 10% of these crimes. According to the government report of 2020 [11] cited in this article, in one study, information on 1,200 out of 2,300 possible offenders were usable, and of these "30% of offenders were White, while 28% were Asian" (meaning that even if those cases that were not used were all white, over 15% were committed by Asians. Another study concerns "4,000 offenders, 1,200 of whom were involved in group-based CSE. This study found that 42% were White or White British, 17% were Black or Black British, 14% were Asian or Asian British, and 4% had another ethnicity. No data on ethnicity was recorded in 22% of cases". Another study involving 306 offenders gives 75% Asian. The report might argue that the data are incomplete or of poor quality and that the number of offenders "seems most likely" to be in line with the general population, it offers no data that South Asians committed less than 10% of such crimes. Hzh (talk) 09:37, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree that it fails WP:NPOVTITLE, the 'moral panic' moniker is not a widely used term, if anything there's mostly been reporting about how the mass rapes were under-reported. I agree with @Hzh that ""Reactions to grooming gangs in the UK" would be a more appropriate title, albeit not adequately describing that the reaction is to specifically Muslim grooming gangs. Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 09:13, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@Rootless Co$mopolitan Perhaps the title is a bit inflammatory. I believe the parts where the article talks about an unfair focus on those specific ethnicities should be moved to articles on racism against those groups in the United Kingdom (perhaps a section on media bias). The crimes themselves have their own articles. Cmrc23 ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ 11:09, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Per @Sirfurboy🏄's comments I have changed my mind and and now support the article in its current form Cmrc23 ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ 13:42, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

RC, you are coming at this wrong, perhaps because you were brought here by a news article that misunderstood what this article is on. The term moral panic certainly is out there, for instance the paper Moral Panic in the Media: Scapegoating South Asian Men in Cases of Sexual Exploitation and Grooming [12] and it is also used in several other papers we could bring together. And this article is about exactly that. It is not an article about the individual cases. We have those, but they are not this. It is not an article about all grooming gang cases. This article is specifically about the moral panic in the media. Clearly the media won't like that much and will write their articles telling you this is about something else. It is not. This article was originally written to be about the moral panic. It was subverted by a small group, rewritten by a now blocked editor, reverted back, survived a deletion attempt and a deletion review, and has now been retitled as per its content as it is and always was. Note the above papers and others like it (e.g. a chapter of [13], or this one [14] etc, all describe the page subject and use terms like moral panic. That is what this page is. It is what it is about. Any attempt to change that is an attetmpt to replace this article with something else entirely. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:47, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't disagree with your overall assertions, but the user who largely rewrote the article Kioj156, was never blocked. Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction. I confused them with someone else. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 13:29, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

As already mentioned, the fact that there are authors who described the grooming gangs as "moral panic" doesn't make "grooming gang moral panic" fact. They are opinions, and you should not state opinion as fact, nor should you have articles titled "grooming gang moral panic" because that is a title constructed by wiki editors rather than something widely used. It is a POV. The article should say some authors put forward the argument that "grooming gangs" is a "moral panic" created by the media, rather than grooming gang is a moral panic. "Moral panic" has been applied by some authors to various issues involving Muslims in the West [15], I see that as polemics rather than actual fact. You can create any number of issues relating to Muslims in the West as "moral panic", but that wouldn't be neutral. Hzh (talk) 14:39, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I am under no illusion that the current title is the best title, although it is a vast improvement on what it had been changed to, and somewhat an improvement on the original title. I would see the titling as a journey and not a destination, and if we had a more robust discussion on title before opening an RM we might be able to see further improvement. But, again, the page subject is the moral panic. It is not a loaded term. It is the term, used in academic sources. Moral panics in the media are an area of academic study, and we never shy away from having articles for which there is sourcing. A couple of examples:

• Lemmings, David; Walker, Claire (2009). Moral panics, the media and the law in early modern England. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230527324.

Argues that media induced moral panics arose with the rise of newspaper reporting in the 1700s, along with the sensibility and rising sensitivity of government to such reporting.

• Petley, Julian (2013). Moral panics in the contemporary world. New York: Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781623568931.

Represents the best current theoretical and empirical work on the topic, taken from the international conference on moral panics held at Brunel University.

So moral panic is the correct term, an academic term, and it is applied here by multiple sources which analyse this moral panic. This article is about this subject. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 15:14, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

The term "moral panic" is used to suggest something irrational, it is therefore a loaded term, not something neutral. In fact the oldest cited source in the article put forward the argument that it is moral panic because the idea that Asians are overrepresented relative to the general population is wrong [16]. As I wrote above, the government report that gives the data in fact do suggest that Asians are over-represented in these crimes, although it argues because these data are incomplete or are of poor data quality, the number "seems most likely" to be in line with the general population. The report gives no data for this assertion, therefore the idea that Asians are not over-represented is unsupported by facts, when actual data show the exact opposite however unsatisfactory you think the data might be. The use of "moral panic" in relation to grooming gangs is therefore unjustified. Its use here is polemical. Hzh (talk) 15:53, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

That article cites this one [17], and the figures are on page 21. You should read the caveats carefully. In particular, because ethnicity of perpetrators is not recorded systematically, you should consider whether that biases the data in any way. But in any case, rather than actually supporting the false narrative, these figures leave a rather large elephant in the room. Study the numbers closely. These data do not support the muslim/south asian grooming gang narrative. If you think they do, you haven't found the elephant yet.

But then that source you do cite says,

The basic ‘proof’ that grooming was a racial issue was that, of fifty-six offenders, convicted across seventeen trials, ‘[t]hree of the 56 were white, 53 were Asian. Of those, 50 were Muslim and a majority were members of the British Pakistani community’. Despite the severity of the offences, seventeen cases hardly constitute the alleged ‘tidal wave of offending’, a clear example of the disproportionality of the original threat, a key ingredient for any moral panic.

(My emphasis). See heading Spurious statistics. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:12, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are arguing. Different sets of figures are given there in that 2015 report, the gang-based CSE (i.e. grooming gangs) shows Asians are over-represent (14%), while all models of CSE shows 10% (gangs + other forms of CSE). Compared to 2011 Asian population of 7.1%. Either numbers still show Asians to be over-represented, especially when you think that there are proportionally more Asian children than white children and the adult Asian population would be proportionally smaller, smaller still when you remove Hindus/Sikhs. The fact a data set that is smaller is used for the argument in that source shows how unreliable the "moral panic" argument is; in the government report, another set of data involving 306 offenders shows that 75% of them were Asian (229 individuals). The other data sets all have over 1,000 offenders. Hzh (talk) 16:58, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

No, the British Asian population is 9.3%.[18] I wonder what else we can ascertain from those figures. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 17:47, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Why are you using 2021 census data for a 2015 report? Are you confusing the 2015 report with the 2020 one? The 2020 one gives data from 2011-15 anyway. The data given in reports from 2011-15 in fact reflected what happened some years earlier, when the Asian population was even smaller. A good proportion of the increase in population from the 2011 census also would not have reached an age to engage in sexual activity anyway. So what is your point? Hzh (talk) 17:54, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has demonstrated that the idea of "grooming gang moral panic" is something more than an opinion and a bit of polemic. It is not actual fact. Hzh (talk) 20:40, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Agree with @Hzh am yet to see any concrete evidence that this new title does not fail WP:NPOVTITLE. Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 21:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I dont think you should make assumptions as to my intentions in participating in this discussion, but I'm choosing to ignore that.

You're not approaching this issue neutrally, and are making assertions about "what the media will like" and not proving your thesis at all. Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 21:04, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

• I'm not sure where to make this observation (sorry) so I'll put it here - it seems to me there is a glaring omission in this article, which is that the 'moral panic', or whatever we want to call it, is/was not primarily about the ethnicity of the perpetrators but rather about how the authorities were afraid to take action against them in case they were labelled racist (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/grooming-gangs-iicsa-racist-fears-b2007649.html, just for example). Without some discussion of this issue, this page feels to me rather like a simple attempt to delegitimise rational concerns rather than an objective encyclopaedic article. Knole Jonathan (talk) 10:35, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Knole Jonathan those issues should probably be talked about on the respective articles about the cases Cmrc23 ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ 11:09, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  They certainly should, but they are very relevant to this article too. Actually I was wrong - there is half a sentence mentioning that issue in this article, but the rest of the article ignores it. That sentence is immediately followed for example by the assertion "The report led a growing number of people to believe that there was a widespread trend of sexual abuse of girls in the UK and contributed to a growth of British right-wing groups such as the British National Party and UKIP in later years" - for which no reference is given. (The BNP's success peaked in 2009.) On reading the article again, it generally seems to be quite poorly referenced (many secondary rather than primary sources), and in particular could do with a lot more direct evidence that this 'moral panic' exists outside the writings of a small number of social commentators. Otherwise it lays itself open to the charge that this article is primarily evidence in itself of a moral panic about right-wing views in society today, rather than anything else. Knole Jonathan (talk) 14:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  You are correct about the claim being unsourced. I was able to find an article discussing a surge of support in ukip after the scandal. Cmrc23 ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ 14:12, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  Actually it is sourced. The paragraph has two citations at the end. The second one is:

  • Tufail, Waqas (2015-10-05). "Rotherham, Rochdale, and the Racialised Threat of the 'Muslim Grooming Gang'". International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. 4 (3): 30–43. doi:10.5204/ijcjsd.v4i3.249. ISSN 2202-8005.

  Page 31 has:

  Quite predictably, the aftermath of The Times investigation proved to be oxygen for the far right, from fascist groups such as the British National Party (BNP), which subsequently imploded in the 2015 UK general elections, to the seemingly more mainstream United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP).

  Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 14:31, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  I read it trying to find that by ctrl+f searching "british national party" but I must have mixed it. I apologise and you are right. Cmrc23 ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ 14:35, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  That Guardian article is definitely a possible reference. However, it's worth noting, I think, that in the only place the article mentions the grooming scandal, it talks about it in terms of the cover-up. There is nothing about any kind of ethnic-based moral panic. Knole Jonathan (talk) 17:03, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  it generally seems to be quite poorly referenced (many secondary rather than primary sources). This is correct for an encyclopaedic article. Wikipedia is a tertiary source and should be describing the subject based on secondary sourcing. If your background is history, this will appear backwards. But in history you are creating the synthesis of the primary sources to assert or defend your thesis. We don't do that on Wikipedia. Rather than creating original research, we base our tertiary articles on the best secondary sources, and avoid our own synthesis per our no original research policy. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 14:35, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  I take your point, but it's not quite what I mean. It's very common for Wikipedia articles on political and social issues to refer to news reports where they make a claim of "xyz happened at a particular time". This article relies rather heavily on scholarly articles; the one saying it was good for the BNP, for example, makes that claim without giving any evidence for that view. It strikes me as a weak source. Knole Jonathan (talk) 16:59, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  The main problem here is that the opinions of some sociologists/social scientists have been stated as fact, which is not how article should be written. Hzh (talk) 21:02, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  We can attribute the statement if necessary to a scientist, but we shouldn’t necessarily give WP:FALSEBALANCE by weighing the statement against right-wing personalities who argue that asian/muslim grooming gangs are a significant problem.

  If there is an issue of neutrality, its far less than insinuating that Asian grooming gangs are a significant issue. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:06, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  Just reread what I wrote, I do not mean to suggest anyone is insinuating something like that in the talk page, OFC, but that a previous TNTed version of the article and the original title definitely insinuated that. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:08, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm certainly not interested in given any WP:FALSEBALANCE, merely that article should not be a place for advocating certain idea, but to write about the subject as neutrally and objectively as possible. That means if the idea of grooming gangs as a moral panic is to be considered, then that should be described as objectively as possible, attributing statement where necessary. It means that the opening line The Muslim grooming gang panic is a moral panic about... and the title are both wrong, because they are opinions but here given as facts. Hzh (talk) 21:46, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

• Especially given that the opening line of this article states the moral panic as fact, which is not backed up with concrete evidence Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 21:07, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  Just one last observation. As I understand it this article claims that there is a moral panic about grooming gangs where that panic is specifically about race and/or Islam, to the exclusion of other things - especially concerns about action not being taken for fear of being seen as racist. The more I look at the evidence the article gives for this, the more it seems to show nothing of the kind. The Allison Pearson article's title (for example) is "Oxford grooming gang: we will regret ignoring Asian thugs who target white girls. What a god-awful mess this country has got itself into over multiculturalism, and once again our fear of racism will lead to the betrayal of hundreds of young girls" (my emphasis; I can't read more because it's behind a paywall). Clearly while ethnicity is relevant to what she's saying, the "fear of racism" is just as much so. Otherwise the article seems to rely very heavily on two scholarly articles (2 & 6 currently), which as I've said above don't in themselves constitute evidence of anything other than the opinions of the people who wrote them - like the unsupported (and I believe incorrect) BNP factoid and the selective quoting of Allison Pearson. In other words, there doesn't seem to be any robust evidence given in the article even for the existence of this particular moral panic. Knole Jonathan (talk) 20:49, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  Wouldn't it make sense to put mentions of the perceived fear of being labelled racist in a more general article? The article suggests that it was a more systematic issue than an issue contained to certain councils. TheeSnowWolf (talk) 14:31, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  It might be worth mentioning at Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom#Group based child sexual exploitation or one of the specific articles (e.g. Rochdale child sex abuse ring, Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal, Telford child sexual exploitation scandal), which deals with the actual events rather than this article that deals with the meta commentary about how the events were reported. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:23, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

• Regardless of your political views, this is an awful yucka poopoo title for an article to have. I am aware that it's the result of a protracted thicket of paperwork, but for Pete's sake, I think anything else would be an improvement. jp×g🗯️ 10:46, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  @JPxG I think the main thing that would make the article worse would be is its old name, because "Muslim grooming gangs" is very much a right wing dogwhistle Cmrc23 ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ 11:30, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  I think the argument about whether it's 'muslim' or 'asian' grooming gangs is almost irrelevant - the problem with the title and opening line is the statement of 'Moral panic' as a fact - this is was 90% of the talk page discourse is about, if you removed those elements, I'm fairly sure we'd find consensus. Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 11:34, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, that was not particularly good either. Frankly, while we are on the topic, I feel like "grooming" is a strange word for a thing as serious as this, being as it is an impossibly vague term people use to describe basically anything

  .-- jp×g🗯️ 13:18, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

• It shouldn't be "grooming gang", but "paedophile ring". These were paedophiles.
  I still think a two-article structure is the correct approach. It's reasonable to have a group article about the various paedophile rings that comprised mainly South Asian men with recognizably Muslim names, and I've said before that that is a real phenomenon and shouldn't have "moral panic" in the title.
  It's also reasonable to have an article about the moral panic manufactured by Andrew Norfolk about what he called "grooming gangs", because he did distort and exaggerate, and the righty headbangers amplified the exaggeration. There are academic sources about that moral panic as well. Trying to do both in one article is not the best approach imo.—S Marshall T/C 11:22, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  This article was always meant to be about the moral panic, there is already an article about sexual abuse in the UK and separate articles about the specific events. They don't contain the word moral panic, as they are about the real events. There isn't need for another article, instead I would suggest that Muslim grooming gangs in the United Kingdom (which currently redirects here) should redirect to Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom#Group based child sexual exploitation. That target already contains details of the real events and links to each of the specific articles.

  No article should have the title of the redirect, it's something readers could search but is very much a non-NPOV title. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:17, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  +1 to all of this but the incoming redirect is fully protected. It will need an admin to retarget. Should we take it to RfD? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:26, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  I think it would be condign to have a hatnote directing erstwhile readers to the other articles -- as it stands, this article sort of beats around the bush and describes the (real) events solely in terms of overreactions or misconceptions, which does not seem ideal. jp×g🗯️ 13:22, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  For example, Emmett Till really was murdered unjustly; if we had an article called Emmett Till moral panic, about how people freaked out over it (for the record this would be a very weird article to have in an encyclopedia), it would be silly to not mention this right at the beginning. Likewise, there seem to have actually been gangs committing ghastly assaults, regardless of what kind of dumb punditry happened afterwards, or whether people were racist in the course of doing such punditry -- while racial prejudice is a cancer on our civilization, I think an encyclopedia should try to say (and imply) things that are true. jp×g🗯️ 13:32, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  The real world events happened, are real and ghastly. There era articles about all those events, and they are described as true. That these events have been reported on very visibly, while the actual majority of cases go basically unreported is also very true. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:39, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  • The media accurately reported that there was a huge issue in lynchings as a result and brought it up.
  • Similar LGBTQ grooming conspiracy theory will often point to real life isolated incidents of lgbtq grooming and provide inordinate amounts of media attention to "prove" that it is the same thing
  • the Moral_panic#Increase_in_crime_(1970s–present)|crime moral panic, especially the Superpredator theory was based on isolated real life incidents.

  I'm not totally for the framing of this as a moral panic (I proposed the title based on the original name of this article), but i am against any framing that suggests that media/far-right attention on isolated cases is anything more than race-baiting. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:54, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  A hatnote would also work. I think a lot of the fuss has come from people looking for the real world events, and instead getting an article about the meta analysis of how those events have been reported on. Both modifying the redirect and adding a hatnote would help solve that problem.

  I would say that the article doesn't describe the real world events as overreactions and misconceptions, it only uses those terms in how the events have been reported. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:36, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  Honestly, probably the best option for this article is to merge and/or redirect to the "Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom" article, but the AfD cut that option off. The RM discussion really did not give any potential closer that much wiggle room, if at all. If the consensus of the discussion went the other way, I would've closed the move discussion the other way, but it didn't, so I didn't. Sceptre (talk) 17:37, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  I politely disagree with User:ActivelyDisinterested about the redirect to Child Sex Abuse in the UK. If we did that, then the recent cases where men with recognizably Muslim names were the main perpetrators——i.e. the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal, the Rochdale child sex abuse ring, the Banbury child sex abuse ring, the Bristol child sex abuse ring, the Peterborough sex abuse case, the Telford child sexual exploitation scandal, the Derby child sex abuse ring, the Halifax child sex abuse ring, the Huddersfield grooming gang, the Newcastle sex abuse ring, and the Oxford child sex abuse ring——would rightly be grouped together under their own subheading because of all the common features of the cases. This would unbalance the CSE in the UK article, by suggesting that Muslim paedophile rings are highly prevalent, when the real problem is that people like Andrew Norfolk make Muslim paedophile rings into national news when white paedophile rings are often local news.

  Separately from this, I also think that we need a separate article on the Muslim rings as a container for disruption that comes from the constant coverage by our completely normal and reasonable friends over at GB News.

  And finally, we need to consider that the victims are living people and they enjoy special protection on Wikipedia under our rules about biographies. Coverage about the individual paedophile rings might include information about the victims, and it's best that this is contained at a lower level than the high-profile national article.—S Marshall T/C 08:14, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oxford Reference defines moral panic as A mass movement based on the false or exaggerated perception that some cultural behaviour or group of people is dangerously deviant and poses a threat to society's values and interests. Moral panics are generally fuelled by media coverage of social issues. [19] I therefore see the application of "moral panic" to the idea of "Muslim grooming gangs" as entirely appropriate. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:44, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for the comment. For reference, Merriam-Webster defines drive-by as done or made in a quick or cursory manner and snark as an attitude or expression of mocking irreverence and sarcasm. jp×g🗯️ 07:05, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

  Other than being snarky, what's the point of this addition. Are you saying that concerns about child sexual exploitation in the UK are 'false or exaggerated' I assume the thousands of victims would disagree. If you can show any evidence of the harm caused by people (correctly) raising concerns about these organised grooming gangs i'd love to see it. This whole talk page is full of people who refuse to justify their polemic. Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 13:22, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

  They said what they are saying. M.Bitton (talk) 13:25, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

  Apparently people think I was being snarky (which wasn't the intent) so I should clarify. The idea that British Pakistani Muslim men are predisposed to sexually abusing children is to put it charitably, an exaggeration, which fits with the Oxford definition. This viewpoint was also perpetrated by the mass media which also fits the Oxford definition. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:34, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

This is your opinion, a valid opinion, as is the opinion of the authors cited in the article. However, Wikipedia articles shouldn't state the opinion of a few authors as fact, which is what this article is doing. Hzh (talk)

The issue is that while there is an element of moral panic to this topic, there are also genuine "grooming" gangs and sexual abuse gangs. For instance, there is a large amount of reliably-sourced information in the pages in Category:Pakistani-British_gangs:

• Derby child sex_abuse ring
• Newcastle sex abuse ring
• Huddersfield grooming gang
• Rochdale child sex abuse ring
• Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal
• Oxford child sex abuse ring

Perhaps the best approach would be to have two articles: one that covers the actual gangs from a high level and a separate article that covers the "moral panic" and domestic UK political aspects. I know some of this information might advance the interests of some politically-unsavory people, but it's important to remember that WP:RGW applies to all sides of a contentious topic. dma (talk) 16:40, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

The problem as discussed is that whether grouped by Pakistani, South Asian, or Muslim those groups don't commit the majority of group based grooming. Having an article about the group that commit 14% of the offences is unbalanced, any article would need to include all such offences and put events in context. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:50, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the shocking nature and scale of the crimes would justify their separation into a new article. In the Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom page, there's a section blandly called Child sexual exploitation involving groups - Which ignores the fact that all these groups had something in common. There is a concerted effort to minimise the well-documented trends in these high-profile cases. A separate page grouping these cases would make sense. Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 07:25, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

On the contrary, the editor selection of cases on that page would suggest the concerted effort is to further the moral panic. Where on that page is the Camborne ring? or the Jersey ring? or the Kidwelly sex cult? or so many others? and why is the Berkhamsted paedophile network called a paedophile network and thus not a grooming gang? and the same could be said for most of the list. I have removed the groups subheading on that page which was deliberately singling out editor selected cases to apparently make a point. If you select all the groups on one feature (ethnicity of perpetrators) then the link is tautologous but not meaningful. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:25, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Is the 14% the one that refers to Asians? "Asian" is unfortunately an obfuscating term used in government reports. You just have to look at the names involved in the cases reported to know that they are not Hindu grooming gangs, and other news reports do suggest most of them are from one single country (so using "South Asian" or even "Muslim" may be misleading). Other Asian communities have complained about the use of "Asians". I'm not sure if there are analyses that break down the perpetrators by nationality, which makes discussing it difficult. It would be concerning if the crimes are committed mostly by a subset of a subset of people.

The main issue however is to me how "moral panic" is used in the article which, as far as I can tell, is not an established fact. If a small community is disproportionately involved in such offences, then that is a legitimate concern. If there is suggestion that certain groups of people are not properly investigated for such offence because of their race or religion, then that is also a legitimate concern. The term "moral panic" here appears to have been used by some authors to delegitimise such valid public concerns. Hzh (talk) 07:39, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

You just have to look at the names involved you do understand that a name doesn't equate to religious affiliation or ethnicity? Certainly there would be a lot correlation, but it would never be one to one.

If a small community is disproportionately involved in such offences South Asians, or however you want to label the group, are slightly overrepresented in grooming cases. Yet still the majority are commited by other groups.

If there is suggestion that certain groups of people are not properly investigated for such offence because of their race or religion This is a valid point and is discussed at length in the appropriate articles, and should be discussed in the child sex abuse article. But it is far, far from the only instance of British society covering up child sex abuse -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:01, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are arguing about names (if you find a Hindu with a Muslim-sounding name it'll be an exception rather than the rule), but it's largely irrelevant to my point about "South Asian" or "Muslim" may be misleading terms. No data has been offered that shows South Asians are slightly over-represented, and my point is that Asian is not the right category in this respect because it may be that only a subset of Asians are over-represented (for example, although there were reports of Bangladeshis being involved in CSE, they don't appear to be over-represented, and Bangladeshis form a significant part of Asians or Muslims). It could be that one subset of Asians are over-represented by three or four times relative to their population (and that should be concerning), but we don't know because I haven't seen official figures on that.

And yes, there are other cases (not just child abuse) where there might have been cover-ups. Certainly there may be cover-ups for the rich and famous, for example Jimmy Savile, or at this moment, Mohamed Al-Fayed, yet you get academic articles that talk about moral panic regarding Jimmy Savile (I gave some sources elsewhere) and presumably someone will write about moral panic regarding Mohamed Al-Fayed. But we don't have Wiki articles on Jimmy Savile moral panic, any such article will be POV articles, as would be the case if you write an article that states the me-too movement as a moral panic (there are sources on that too). Hzh (talk) 07:58, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

You gave two sources regarding the Jimmy Savile moral panic. This one [20] is about the scandal in the round, suggesting a moral panic analysis, but much better is this one [21] which is worth reading in full, and gets referred to in Dingwall & Hillier, Blamestorming, blamemongers and scapegoats (2015), [22] and has at least 8 citations. It is a short article, and it analyses the Savile scandal in the light of moral panic analysis, and then shows what is wrong there. I won't go into more detail for fear we would sidetrack the discussion, but it bears careful reading. I think it is particular pertinent in where it discusses what constitutes a moral panic on page 1.

Now, you bring this piece to the table as though it should be obvious that we do not write about the Savile panic, and thus, by extension, we should not write about this panic. But note that what you have there, and with Dingwall and Hillier, are independent reliable secondary sources that suggest there is a subject. There are many many articles on Wikipedia that are kept based only on such sourcing. If someone wrote about the Savile moral panic, they would now have a decent argument that a subject exists. Because yes, there is a moral panic element there which did affect public policy and take the public eye off other things. Again, read the sources carefully.

But there is a very good question as to whether Wikipedia should cover the topic of a specific academically discussed moral panic. I argued against it in the deletion discussion, as did others, but the closer judged all such arguments as not being policy and guideline based. So we have the article, because it is discussed in multiple independent reliable secondary sources. It meets WP:N and this is that article and nothing else. I'll add some of this to the further reading. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:59, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

The problem has always been stating it as a fact, rather than as an opinion that requires attributions. You may start an article about reactions to the Savile scandal where, among other things, you might talk about academics discussing it as a moral panic, but stating it being a moral panic as a fact is a POV. Hzh (talk) 11:13, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

The threshold for inclusion is verifiability, not truth. Reliable sources and the WP:BESTSOURCES describe a moral panic, and analyse it, noting that the term "grooming gang" has no legal definition, that the cases are cherry-picked, and there is a focus on cherry-picking such cases around a specific inner city nighttime economy that selects for the groups that run that specific economy. Also noted is the lack of data on ethnicity in criminal reporting. All of this is key to placing this squarely into the academic analyses of moral panics. It is notable information. Although WP:Truth matters, the problem here is not that the article should not exist, but that in presenting the subject to the reader, editors must approach it with a neutral point of view. There is no doubt that this issue meets all the definitions of a moral panic. There may, however, be a better form of wording that says that more carefully. That is probably what we should be discussing. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:35, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

It really goes back to my first point, which is that "grooming gang moral panic" fails WP:NPOVTITLE. That term isn't really a thing in the media, and the Guardian might be the only place where that is mentioned, and the author that first made the "moral panic" accusation writes for the Guardian. However you might think you are convinced by the analysis, it is still an opinion. Terms like "scandal" might be used in title if the subjects are commonly described as such, this term is simply not commonly used in the media. Hzh (talk) 11:56, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Why on earth would it matter what the media are saying? This article is about the academic analysis of the moral panic. Media sources are generally primary sources. Following those for article titling leads to all kinds of nonsense. Like, you know, Mike Pence's fly. The subject of moral panics is an interesting one because it shows, quite clearly, everything that is wrong with making Wikipedia a glorified news aggregator. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:03, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter whether they are primary or secondary sources, only that this is how the subject is commonly described as in RS. The author whose conclusion you are so enamoured with is a primary source (it is the first place where such term is applied to this). Hzh (talk) 12:16, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

It is not the first place such a term was applied. The term was applied to a similar moral panic in Australia concerning Lebanese muslims (Humphrey, 2007). Neither am I sure which of these sources I am "so enamoured with". If you think I am enamoured, I don't think you are paying attention to what I am saying. News reports are primary, but an analysis and synthesis is secondary. And here are just some the academic sources that speak to this as moral panic:

• Arthur, Raymond; Down, Lisa (October 2019). "Preventing the Criminalisation of Children Who Have Been Victims of Group-Based Sexual Exploitation Involving Grooming Tactics—Understanding Child Sexual Exploitation as Enslavement". The Journal of Criminal Law. 83 (5): 370–380. doi:10.1177/0022018319879013. Recently the United Kingdom has been beset by a moral panic concerning gangs grooming girls for sexual exploitation.

• Cockbain, Ella (April 2013). "Grooming and the 'Asian sex gang predator': the construction of a racial crime threat". Race & Class. 54 (4): 22–32. doi:10.1177/0306396813475983. a clear example of the disproportionality of the original threat, a key ingredient for any moral panic.
• Cockbain, Ella; Tufail, Waqas (2020). "Failing victims, fuelling hate: challenging the harms of the 'Muslim grooming gangs' narrative". Race & Class. 61 (3): 3–32. doi:10.1177/0306396819895727. ISSN 0306-3968. Although so-called 'grooming gang' cases have undoubtedly involved horrific abuses,159 it is clear overall that a disproportionate, politicised and racialised panic has emerged...
• Cohen, Stanley (April 2011). Folk Devils and Moral Panics. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-136-80704-6.

• Gill, Aisha K.; Day, Aviah Sarah (30 November 2020). Ramon, Shulamit; Lloyd, Michele; Penhale, Bridget (eds.). "Moral Panic in the Media: Scapegoating South Asian Men in Cases of Sexual Exploitation and Grooming". Gendered Domestic Violence and Abuse in Popular Culture. Emerald Publishing Limited. pp. 171–197. doi:10.1108/978-1-83867-781-720201011. ISBN 978-1-83867-782-4. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
• Gill, Aisha K; Harrison, Karen (1 July 2015). "Child Grooming and Sexual Exploitation: Are South Asian Men the UK Media's New Folk Devils?". International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. 4 (2): 34–49. doi:10.5204/ijcjsd.v4i2.214. ISSN 2202-8005. ...the media incited moral panic over South Asian grooming gangs...

• Humphrey, Michael (September 2007). "Culturalising the Abject: Islam, Law and Moral Panic in the West". Australian Journal of Social Issues. 42 (1): 9–25. doi:10.1002/j.1839-4655.2007.tb00036.x.

• Morgan, George (22 April 2016). Global Islamophobia: Muslims and Moral Panic in the West. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-12772-7.

• Tufail, Waqas (5 October 2015). "Rotherham, Rochdale, and the Racialised Threat of the 'Muslim Grooming Gang'". International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. 4 (3): 30–43. doi:10.5204/ijcjsd.v4i3.249. ISSN 2202-8005. ...compounded by recent episodes of racialised panic generated...

Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 14:31, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

You are just indiscriminately citing sources. Two of these are from the same author who wrote the original article, another is closely associated with her (they have published together). A couple of others are also already cited in the article. Some of the others are too early to be considered moral panic over this issue (since early reports were dismissed by police, the victims ignored and no action taken), and the whole thing only blew up in the media after the Times report, and you want to include book/articles written in 2011 or that earlier Australian ones? I can't even find this topic mentioned in some of the books. Hzh (talk) 15:04, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I provided selected quotations from each source. Not indiscriminate. Did you read Humphrey (2007)? See page 11:

The empirical focus is gang rape and the trials of Muslim youth on gang rape charges in Sydney between 2000-2002. Gang rape quickly became culturally inflected as ‘Muslim’ and ‘Lebanese’ by media reporting of the criminal trials and moral panic about them as source of social menace.

I take it you see the comparable particulars. Or there is page 21:

What the recent moral panics about ‘Muslim immigrant gang rapes’ in Western societies have thrown up is that cultural difference is not seen just as cultural backwardness but potentially subversive. Culture has been made a matter of personal insecurity and national security. The identification of Muslim youth with gang rapes positions them at the margins of society and a threat to ‘our values’...

They are not talking about this specific moral panic, but they demonstrate that this is not the first time we have been here. And it gives the lie to your claim that this is all because of some Times article (which?), or that one of the academics has invented this term to apply here. The study of moral panic is not the novelty you suppose. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:17, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

What have those got to do with the title of of this article, which is specific to grooming gangs in the UK? I gathered you read the Ella Cockbain article (which you quoted before) that talked about the Times coverage, so why are you even arguing about it? Did you think I was talking about anything else apart from the subject of this article? Hzh (talk) 17:09, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Citing examples of other circumstances doesn't support your thesis? Saying that moral panics exist does not mean this is one. WP:NOPOVTITLE is the most applicable rule and it has simply not been followed. Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 08:23, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

In this case media are clearly secondary sources, since they doing (from your link) "analyses and comments on those events" High Tinker (talk) 09:42, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

You are going to have to show your working on that one. News reports are generally primary sources as per WP:PRIMARYNEWS (as I said - note the wording carefully). Comment is not, itself, necessarily analysis. Opinions and op-eds are generally primary too. Except that it is rarely cut and dried. The question of whether a comment becomes secondary will depend on the question you ask of the source. It will be a primary source for the opinion of the commentator, of course. It will be secondary if there is a synthesis of material, for questions around that synthesis. But the newspaper report itself remains what we would call a discursive primary source. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:40, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I also had this thought. We could have two articles, one a list of the various grooming scandals, and second this article. When searching the list would be the first result, unless the terms moral or panic are included High Tinker (talk) 09:38, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

We have such a list at Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom#Notable incidents although it remains incomplete. Even more incomplete is Child sex ring. We definitely don't need another one. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:24, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Ok, well grooming gangs search should redirect there then, grooming gangs + moral or panic, to this article High Tinker (talk) 11:12, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

• I've removed LGBTQ grooming conspiracy theory from the 'See also' section. There is no mention of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, or queer in the entire article, either in prose or in citation titles. If citations mention any sort of LGBTQ+ aspect to this, then incorporate that commentary into the prose. Otherwise, the linkage is inappropriate. I don't particularly care about the race-based elements of this article, but I agree with the innumerous comments above that the use of "moral panic" in the article title is completely inappropriate, when there are at least 6 distinct cases of British gang-based CSE that have their own articles on Wikipedia. Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 01:32, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Rename Demand

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This is not a 'moral panic' but rather a real issue that affected hundreds of thousands. To say anything else is morally slavish, ideologically bent, and a disgrace to the victims. As the relative of a victim, I demand this is rectified or else I will delete my account on this website and will call on others to do as well. BoringLifeBoringWife (talk) 17:07, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Thoughts about merging into Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom#Group based child sexual exploitation

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Several people have objected to the concept of this article as a standalone entity. A possible solution would be to merge the content into Child_sexual_abuse_in_the_United_Kingdom#Group_based_child_sexual_exploitation, where the moral panic could be presented in context. Thought I would open this thread as an informal poll as to whether anyone else thinks this is the best option. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:02, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I now consider this to be a formal merge request. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:02, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

• I would be supportive of that. Per my comments at AfD, the subject is moral panic, racism, islamophobia and the persistence of media led narratives. This should probably be mentioned in appropriate articles [...] Although it should be mentioned in appropriate places, there is no case for an article itself, which would always look like a war zone. TNT is not enough. Needs C4. Maybe a nuke. The secondary sources on the moral panic (and we now have nine of those) need suitable coverage, but that coverage is better placed in the context of a larger page rather than a subject in its own right. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:28, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I think this article should be merged into islamaphobia, and presented neutrally, with 'moral panic' heavily caveated Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 09:26, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I've no objection to this, the subject is notable but doesn't necessarily need it's own page as it is part of a larger context. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:26, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Support just to be clear. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:53, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support The content of this article fits better into the group-based CSE section, because it is a subtopic of that section. An argument could be made that the group-based CSE section could be an article by itself, but that is something that could be done in the future. That section however needs to be re-written, given its over-emphasis on the opinion of a few authors, particularly from The Guardian (which would be worse when this article is merged because the cited sources were written by the author of the paper that proposes the "moral panic" argument). There were other opinions on the 2020 government report, and those weren't given. The rewrite can be done when the content of this article has been adjusted, trimmed and merged. Hzh (talk) 10:31, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support This seems like a sensible approach that avoids making an inflammatory claim in the title

Rootless Co$mopolitan (talk) 11:11, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support. Easy way to prevent coatracking is to not have it in the first place. Sceptre (talk) 22:50, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
• Comment Hemiauchenia, since people have started actual bolded !voting, perhaps it should become a formal merge discussion? That would be required as the target page watchers need to be aware of the proposal too, as well as other merge watchers. I can add the templates if you like. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:21, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

  I've added the mergeto and mergefrom templates to the relevant pages already. As far as I am aware I don't think anything more is necessary. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:01, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

  Oh yes! I missed it. Going heading blind! thanks. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 14:07, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea to me. It always seems to me like a strange edge-case (and probably a pathological case) in our notability guidelines: a speech meets GNG but the politician who gave it doesn't, a product recall meets GNG but the product doesn't, a bunch of people hating a movie is notable but the movie itself is not, et cetera. Even if the guidelines say we should do that, it's silly. In this case, if "a moral panic" (presumably the tangible meaning of this is a bunch of news articles/tweets/etc) about some thing is notable and warrants a standalone article, surely the thing itself does as well, whether or not it is true or justified or et cetera. If one doesn't exist, then there's no way it makes sense for the media discourse about it to have one; it should be a subsection of something else. jp×g🗯️ 12:19, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, this kind of cases is where WP:NOPAGE really shines. Ca ^{talk to me!} 14:05, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Close on procedural grounds - This was discussed in a deletion attempt and the associated deletion review. From a purely procedural view, we've discussed this recently for nearly a month already. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 03:07, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

You mean the deletion attempt that was literally closed with "To remind you, we are here to decide whether the topic justifies inclusion, not whether the current content or title are suitable" and "I trust a move discussion will proceed now that the AfD is closed"? Not sure when the policy RfC came in to officially ratify WP:NOBODYSALLOWEDTODISCUSSANYTHINGFORLONGERTHANNEARLYAMONTH. jp×g🗯️ 03:26, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

A move discussion is not the same as a merge. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:10, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

And a merge discussion is not the same as a deletion discussion. It is a WP:PAGEDECIDE issue rather than a matter of notability. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:13, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

In any case, that's not how a procedural close works. Biohistorian15 (talk) 20:17, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I think with the amount of confusion about the changing scope of the article during that AfD and then the no consensus deletion review, that having this discussion is worthwhile. If this discussion decides against merging then I don't think it would be worthwhile to have another discussion on the issue for several months. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:27, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support. The current title is editorializing to an utterly inappropriate extent. Literally anything else will do at this point. Biohistorian15 (talk) 20:17, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support, but "Group based child sexual exploitation" in the section title and body text should be "Group-based child sexual exploitation", per MOS:HYPHEN. Ham II (talk) 20:25, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Support. Predominantly based on WP:ARTICLESIZE that would be under 3,000 words if merged. I think this would also help to alleviate any WP:POVFORK issues that are present or could emerge by bringing the editors of both articles together, given this article is only a few months old compared to the other that is 10 years old. Also recommend a WP:MERGECLOSE (by someone involved or otherwise) as has been two weeks with only one objection to this proposal. CNC (talk) 14:15, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.