Black Lives Matter

Prior to Research Blog 

Before researching about the Black Lives Matter Online Movement (BLM), I believed the BLM movement to be a small movement that focused on certain instances of police brutality that started in early 2018 with the fatal shooting of Stephon Clark who was fatally shot by police in his grandmother’s backyard after they believed him to be an armed robbery suspect. This was later found to be false but no officers were charged in the incident. 

I thought that the BLM movement only truly became a large-scale online movement in May 2020 when George Floyd was killed by officer, Derek Chauvin. This caused citywide protests which lasted weeks, and led to even larger protests online with people around the world outraged.

People from lots of countries began to call for the prosecution of Derek Chauvin and his colleagues both online and on social media, which put immense pressure on the American government to do something about the situation quickly. Many public figures from singers, politicians, athletes and actors urged their followers to post online to put pressure on the legal system and prosecutors to take appropriate action on the matter.

The activism that people took part in online resulted in Derek Chauvin being charged with second degree-unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree murder which come up to an accumulative sentence of 75 years in prison at the maximum. This shows a significant difference between the case of Stephon Clark in which not a single officer was charged.

From extensive research I have learnt about the major extent to which the online part of the BLM movement has contributed to political change in today’s world. It began almost a decade ago in July 2013, after George Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges in the death of Trayvon Martin. This caused the first use of #BlackLivesMatter. It was only in November 2014 after a jury refused to indict officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. This ignited a call to action against police brutality in the form of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. It is used to bring to light examples of police brutality, to tell people to take real-life action and to start a conversation about the topic between people. As of April 2021 the hashtag has been used n over 25 million Twitter posts, which have received approximately 17,000 engagements per post.versation about the topic between people. As of April 2021 the hashtag has been used n over 25 million Twitter posts, which have received approximately 17,000 engagements per post.

According to roughly seven out of ten of Black, Hispanic and Asian American Twitter users in the United States are in agreement that social media movements have an effect on getting politicians attention, influencing policy decisions and creating sustained social movements. After the death of George Floyd on May 25th 2020, the hashtag #BlackoutTuesday was born. In just a few hours more than 14.6 million black squares were posted onto Instagram feeds. This showed governments, news outlets, policy makers and the judge and jury of George Floyd case the amount of people around the world who stood with George Floyd.