An aspiring social media star who forced a plane to make an emergency landing after joking that he could have the deadly coronavirus says he was trying to get a viral video and has apologized for interrupting passengers’ journeys.
In an interview with Canada’s Global News, Potok said: “I stood up, I said, ‘Can I have everybody’s attention, I just came back from Hunan province.’ And that was it.” He told Toronto’s City News that he had announced: “I just came back from Hunan province, the capital of the coronavirus…I’m not feeling too well. Thank you.” Potok said the airline staff then put him in a mask and gloves. Another passenger on board, Julie-Anne Broderick, wrote on Facebook that her flight returned “because SOME IDIOT pretended he had the Coronavirus to post on YouTube.” The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation said 243 people were on board. Where do we draw the moral line? This is not the first time that a social media star has used a very sensitie topic to make a viral video. Remember when Logan Paul went to the suicide forest in Japan. So, why is it okay for them to make fun of things that are quite literally deadly? And why is it that instead of them getting cancelled, they gain more popularity? Where is it that we draw the moral line exactly?