Social media advances movements like Black Lives Matter

OLIVIA HINER co-editor-in-chief

With social media comes a lot of information, regardless of whether it is helpful or not.

Although it is often looked at from a negative viewpoint, it does help spread the word about certain issues especially with movements like the Black Lives Matter movement.

What many may not know about the BLM movement through social media is that it actually started in 2013.

According to History.com in the article titled “The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter frst appears, sparking a movement,” the hashtag began after George Zimmerman killed a black teenager. Alicia Garza posted the hashtag on Facebook, and it spread from there.

More recently, in 2020, following the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, many took to social media to voice their outrage. Blackout Tuesday occurred on June 2, 2020. The movement was initiated by music marketers Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang, as stated in The New York Times article “#BlackoutTuesday: A Music Industry Protest Becomes a Social Media Moment.” Black screens were posted all over social media with the captions “#blackouttuesday” or “#theshowmustbepasued.”

As discussed in The New York Times article listed above, the aim of this silent protest was to disrupt the normal fow of social media and bring awareness to the Black Lives Matter movement. While it had good intentions, the article notes that there was more harm done than good, as the posts got in the way of actual news outlets, which demonstrates the fact that there are both positives and negatives that come with social media being used as an outlet.

To shed light on social media being used for the BLM movement, Oliver Warren, History Dept. member and WHS NAACP adviser, gave his insight. Warren stated, “..honestly without social media, there would be no BLM. Like never before, we have seen Black folks killed by police (and civilians) time and time again because of cameras and social media. Social media organized those moved by what they were seeing.”

If using social media as a way to follow BLM, Warren recommends following people with good insights, credentials and sourcing.

Warren also mentioned that “The local NAACP has a Facebook group and the WHS NAACP has an Instagram.”

Brian Questel, History Dept. member, also points out the positives to using social media to spread BLM messages. Questel discusses that “Although there has been a sizable negative social media presence directed toward BLM, I believe the information that gets out through social media uncensored has a positive and long-lasting impact for the movement…”

Warren also addresses that it should be kept in mind that messages on social media are often one-sided and do not tell the whole story, so collecting information from multiple sources is benefcial.

On Feb. 25, Juanita Green, the president of the Wooster/Orrville NAACP mentioned that the BLM group will be celebrating their 1,000th day in memory of George Floyd on the square.