Michael Malice, a Soviet-born author and political commentator, argued that COVID-19 lockdowns encouraged a culture of reporting neighbours and revealed what he described as a darker “nature of evil” in American society. His comments draw a comparison with Soviet-style informant systems, suggesting that public-health restrictions created pressure for people to police one another’s behaviour.

The article centres on Malice’s appearance on Fox News programming, where he discusses Soviet communism, propaganda and political authority. It presents his view that pandemic-era social controls and public compliance campaigns had wider social consequences, though the text provided gives no specific incidents, data or independent evidence supporting the comparison.