Many of the individual and social problems that are characterised as moral panics are, in reality, illustrations of a breakdown in the legitimacy of the state. This Byte picks up a number of case-study examples - internet pornography; internet radicalisation; ‘chavs’; the Tottenham riots; patient safety - and explores each through the lens of moral panic ideas, with an appraisal of the work of Stuart Hall, one of the key thinkers in moral panics.