Moral outrage is a powerful emotion that motivates people to punish those identified as transgressors.For example, just watch a televised debate about discrimination against a minority (stimulus). The dispute is twofold: on one side are the victims' advocates, and on the other, the alleged "aggressors." The discussion triggers moral outrage: the aim is to create an intense confrontation, criticizing and humiliating the alleged aggressor. The circus-like spectacle often unfolds with the moderator siding with the alleged victims. The aim is to provoke strong emotion in the viewer, encouraging public condemnation of the aggressors (response) in the name of social justice.

This hate-mongering strategy—a veritable "moral pyromania"—is widely used on social media to garner views. People flood comment boxes with insults they'd be incapable of uttering face-to-face. But hasty moral judgments lead to false accusations and new victims.

A paradigmatic case was that of Nicholas Sandmann (2019). A short video showed the teenager, wearing a "MAGA" hat, apparently confronting a Native American veteran, Nathan Phillips. The scene generated viral accusations of racism and led to massive public attacks against the young man, as the video excerpt was republished in leading media outlets such as the Washington Post and CNN. However, longer videos revealed that he did not provoke the confrontation.Sandmann, dissatisfied, filed defamation lawsuits against the media outlets that reported the story without journalistic accuracy.

Moral outrage fatigue can also generate another reaction: role reversal, leading individuals initially identified as aggressors to present themselves as the true victims of a system that persecutes them. This promotes an inverse aggression—helping to understand the current rise of radical ideas at the opposite pole of so-called political correctness—creating a vicious cycle of hostility and intolerance.

The public space should be a stage for civilized debate. Problems are not resolved through extremist discussions, with insulting epithets that seek to discredit the interlocutor (phobic, xenophobic, racist, etc.). Moral indignation is a volatile emotion and is not anchored in true ethics, often leading to a radicalized, violent, persecutory, and thoughtless social environment.