By Aaron Miller-
Arizona is the most resistant state in the country when it comes to wearing masks, according to a recent study examining anti-mask activity online.
An analysis conducted by Survival At Home, a survival and preparedness website, with direct access to what Twitter calls “tweet geospatial metadata,” or the location information that’s built into tweets and the profiles that post them.
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Many of those objecting have cited supposed health risks to mask-wearing and the importance of bodily autonomy in their rationale on the subject.
Compiling over 150,000 geotagged Twitter posts that referenced popular hashtags like “#nomask,” “#burnyourmask,” “iwillnotcomply” and others, Survival At Home was able to produce a map of the hotspots for anti-mask sentiment.
“As you can see, there are pockets of anti-mask activity all across the US, however the upper northeast (outside of Maine) is the most pro-mask region,” Ryan Taylor, a publicist for the marketing and brand firm Fresh Marketing, said.
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Taylor added that the analysis only tracked anti-mask Tweets and that “tweets in favor of wearing masks (pro-mask activity) far outweighs the anti-mask sentiment in each state.”
The research states that after Arizona, the states with the most anti-mask online activity are Nevada, Florida, Idaho and Maine, Taylor said.
Using geotagged Twitter data, this map shows anti-mask sentiment on the social media platform by state.
In one well-known case n Arizona, a Scottsdale woman was seen destroying a mask display at Target in an expletive-filled fury in a video that went viral on July 6..
“I have 17 pre-COVID scientific, peer-reviewed studies/references that detail the health risks of prolonged wearing of face masks,” Republican State Rep. Kelly Townsend said in a tweet on May 19. “Therefore, I will not be wearing one today. Mask-wearers should have nothing to worry about, if they work. ‘#MyBodyMyChoice’ #FetusBodyFetusChoice.”
Another local politician, Scottsdale Councilperson Guy Phillips received national attention when he ripped off his face mask and yelled into the microphone, “I can’t breathe” at a protest against Scottsdale’s mask mandate on June 24.
While critics demanded Phillips resign from his post claiming that his outburst was a callous and disrespectful evocation of George Floyd’s last words, Phillips denied that it was intentional and declined to step down.
And at a rally for President Donald Trump at Dream City Church in Phoenix on June 23, Trump spent little time addressing the COVID-19 pandemic surging across the state in his speech to a crowded and mostly mask-less room.
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