The Black Lives Matter movement is a social media movement, but it is of course much more than that. It is also organizers mobilizing for political change; it is people bearing witness to police brutality against Black people; it is people in the streets protesting injustice. The movement and hashtag were started in 2013 by Alicia Garza, Opal Tometti and Patrice Cullors “in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman” ( https://blacklivesmatter.com/herstory/ ), and it expanded g
Despite social platforms being centrally owned and controlled on the macro scale (the platforms decide who can participate and what can be said, and can remove people and content) and the micro scale (complex algorithms determine what individual users should see), many engage in protest through social media to ensure their voice is heard. It has the potential for being a direct channel to people that can’t easily be reached through traditional channels. In a study of people using #BlackLivesMatter, research
perhaps the most notable function of social media is providing activists with the ability to control their own narrative, thus creating awareness and visibility for the issues that the movement addresses … For instance, one group shared, “Social media provides us a platform to tell our story as real, as raw, and as relevant as it may be, without the worry of a filter being put on, or someone else’s perspectives and biases.