Internet activism involves the use of electronic-communication technologies such as social media, e-mail, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster and more effective communication by citizen movements, the delivery of particular information to large and specific audiences, as well as coordination. Internet technologies are used by activists for cause-related fundraising, community building, lobbying, and organizing. A digital-activism campaign is "an organized public effort, making collective claims on a target authority, in which civic initiators or supporters use digital media." Research has started to address specifically how activist/advocacy groups in the U.S. and in Canada use social media to achieve digital-activism objectives.
Media activism is a broad category of activism that utilizes media and communication technologies for social and political movements. Methods of media activism include publishing news on websites, creating video and audio investigations, spreading information about protests, or organizing campaigns relating to media and communications policies.
A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash symbol, #. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Tumblr as a form of user-generated tagging that enables cross-referencing of content by topic or theme. For example, a search within Instagram for the hashtag #bluesky returns all posts that have been tagged with that term. After the initial hash symbol, a hashtag may include letters, numerals, or underscores.
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters, be organized by hashtags, and be associated with a location via geographical tagging. Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers. Users can browse other users' content by tags and locations, view trending content, like photos, and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed. A Meta-operated image-centric social media platform, it is available on iOS, Android, Windows 10, and the web. Users can take photos and edit them using built-in filters and other tools, then share them on other social media platforms like Facebook. It supports 32 languages including English, Hindi, Spanish, French, Korean, and Japanese.
Black Twitter is an internet community largely consisting of the Black diaspora of users in the United States and other nations on Twitter, focused on issues of interest to the black community. Feminista Jones described it in Salon as "a collective of active, primarily African-American Twitter users who have created a virtual community proving adept at bringing about a wide range of sociopolitical changes." A similar Black Twitter community arose in South Africa in the early 2010s.
Hashtag activism refers to the use of social media hashtags for Internet activism. The hashtag has become one of the many ways that social media contributes to civic engagement and social movements. The use of the hashtag on social media provides users with an opportunity to share information and opinions about social issues in a way that others (followers) can interact and engage as part of a larger conversation with the potential to create change. The hashtag itself consists of a word or phrase that is connected to a social or political issue, and fosters a place where discourse can occur. Social media provides an important platform for historically marginalized populations. Through the use of hashtags these groups are able to communicate, mobilize, and advocate for issues less visible to the mainstream.
Blackout Day is a social media-promoted event in which supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement are encouraged to not spend any money, or only spend money at Black-owned businesses for 24 hours, for the purpose of raising awareness of police brutality and racism towards Black people. It also encourages the posting of content that was created by, and features, black creators. Specific hashtags, such as #TheBlackout and #BlackoutDay are used to connect users and raise the visibility of related content. Blackout Day began on March 6, 2015. After December 21, 2015, it was scheduled to be held on the seventh day of every third month, starting with March 6, 2016.
Virtue signalling is a pejorative term for the act of showing oneself to have good character, such as by expressing opinions that are considered morally acceptable, often on social media. The term is often used to suggest that such expressions are insincere or grandstanding.
The George Floyd protests were a series of riots and demonstrations against police brutality that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. The protests and civil unrest began in Minneapolis as reactions to the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed African American man, by city police during an arrest. They spread nationally and internationally. Veteran officer Derek Chauvin was recorded as kneeling on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds; Floyd complained of not being able to breathe, but three other officers looked on and prevented passers-by from intervening. Chauvin and the other three officers involved were later arrested. In April 2021, Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. In June 2021, Chauvin was sentenced to 22+1⁄2 years in prison.
8 minutes 46 seconds (8:46) is a symbol of police brutality that originated from the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Derek Chauvin, a police officer, knelt on Floyd's neck, asphyxiating him. The duration that Chauvin spent kneeling was reported for weeks as 8 minutes 46 seconds, and later as 7 minutes 46 seconds, until body camera footage released in August 2020 showed that the actual time was 9 minutes 29 seconds. In the days following his murder, and the protests that followed, the duration became a focus of commemorations and debates, especially around Blackout Tuesday.
Performative activism is activism done to increase one's social capital rather than because of one's devotion to a cause.
There were a series of George Floyd protests in Illinois. Demonstrations and protests were held in at least 30 communities around the state, with major demonstrations happening in Chicago. The vast majority of demonstrations were peaceful, though there were several instances of property damage or violence attributed to demonstrators or counter-protestors, the worst of which occurred in Aurora. In some cities, curfews were issued or orders released advising residents to avoid the areas in which protests were taking place.
Individuals and organizations throughout the United States and the world have responded to the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests and riots.
Shortly after protests seeking justice for George Floyd, an African-American who was accidentally killed during a police arrest, began in the United States, people in Canada protested to show solidarity with Americans and to demonstrate against issues with police or racism in Canada. Vigils and protests of up to thousands of participants took place in all 10 provinces and all 3 territories of Canada.
"Black Parade" is a song by American singer and songwriter Beyoncé. It was produced by Beyoncé and Derek Dixie in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the protests that followed it. The song was surprise released on June 19, 2020, also referred to as Juneteenth, a day commemorating the abolishment of slavery in the United States. The song serves as a celebration of Black culture and the support of Black activism. While initially a stand-alone single, an extended version of the song was used in the end credits of Beyoncé's film Black Is King and included in the accompanying deluxe edition of The Lion King: The Gift, both released on July 31, 2020.
#ChallengeAccepted, also known as the Challenge Accepted campaign, is an Instagram tagged challenge as well as an awareness campaign on empowering women involving sharing posts of black-and-white selfies. The Instagram challenge was launched alongside another hashtag campaign #WomenSupportingWomen with the core objective of empowering and encouraging women to share the black-and-white photographs and selfies of themselves on their respective Instagram accounts.
Keith Harris OBE is an English music industry consultant and artist manager, who is the former chair of UK Music's Diversity & Equality Taskforce. Harris has worked in the music industry on both sides of the Atlantic for more than four decades as a promotions manager, including for such major companies as Transatlantic Records, EMI and Motown, and he is one of the most high-profile black executives in the business, with artists he has represented including Stevie Wonder, Junior Giscombe, Omar, and Lynden David Hall. Harris serves in non-executive director and board positions across multiple music charities and companies, while regularly giving talks, seminars and workshops to aiming to change perceptions and help to give young people the tools to enter the industry.
There are reports of TikTok censoring political content related to China and other countries as well as content from minority creators. TikTok says that its initial content moderation policies, many of which are no longer applicable, were aimed at reducing divisiveness and were not politically motivated.
Shirien Damra is an American illustrator, designer, artist, and activist. She is known for her illustrations in support of social justice movements including the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, and support of the LGBT community, immigration, Indigenous rights, and Palestine. Her work has had power through viral sharing, and has been noted as a newer form of activism.
