Twitter Rallied to Find a Missing Woman — And Then Turned On Her

How #we’relookingforyoukaren transformed into #lyingkaren.

It was nearly 10 a.m. on December 4 when Laura Karen Espindola realized it had all gone wrong. “Holy shit. Look what’s happened,” her friend said before holding out his phone. Espindola’s face was all over his Facebook. Each post featured the selfie she’d sent her mom the previous night — her hair a glossy blonde cascade down her shoulders, coral lipstick shimmering in filtered light — and the hashtag #TeBuscamosKaren: #We’reLookingForYouKaren.

Social media’s de facto alarm system — the hashtag — had labeled her a missing person.

Espindola grabbed her purse and ran out of her friend’s house into a mild Mexico City morning. In a panic, she ditched her bag — cell phone, wallet, and all — on a footbridge and hailed a cab.

When she arrived home, her family greeted her with joy and questions. Wordlessly, she pushed past them, hurried to her room, and shut the door.

How could she explain she’d been out partying with friends when her family — and the whole country — thought she’d been kidnapped? She later described what had actually happened in a television interview: She was meant to come home the previous evening, but then they’d started…