Social Media Accounts Aim to Create Accountability During a Summer of Protests

Individuals and news organizations alike are learning to navigate the streets and social media platforms as a summer of protests took the nation. Following the deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery in late spring, grassroots social justice organizations have taken hold in cities from New York to Milwaukee, and from Seattle to Portland.

In Seattle, organizers of Instagram pages @seattleprotests and @defundspd have helped coordinate protests, arranged mutual aid assistance to protesters and send out live information about what happens when they clash with the Seattle Police Department. Many incidences of police violence have been caught on camera and shared out through these platforms in an effort to raise awareness of how police are interacting with non-violent protesters and to build evidence against the SPD.

One video shared on social media during the week of September 25 showed a police officer riding over the head of an injured protester with his bike. The King County Sheriff’s department has taken over the investigation of the incident, and the officer was placed on paid leave for a week.

Protesters in support of the Black Lives Matter movement aren’t the only ones utilizing social media to spread their messages. In June 2020, Twitter took down accounts linked to white nationalists groups. An account titled @ANTIFA_US was run by a groups called Identity Evropa, now known as the American Identity Movement. The goal of the accounts was to spread disinformation and often times incite violence among Black Lives Matter and antifa supporters. Antifa, which stands for anti-fascist, is a non-centralized, unofficially organized following of people who believe that fighting against fascism in the US is central to upholding democracy. Although it is widely believed to be an officially organized movement, those involved with antifa say there is no structure to their platform.

Access to social media has allowed for the spread of both fact and disinformation during this summer of protests. Many people are turning to social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter for live, in-the-moment updates on protests in their region. The more people turn to social media for real information on issues in their area, the more these platforms will be used to spread disinformation and manipulate algorithms to hamper efforts to inform and organize.