On Instagram, Black Squares Overtook Activist Hashtags | WIRED
▻https://www.wired.com/story/instagram-black-squares-overtook-activist-hashtags
The posts had completely overtaken the #blacklivesmatter hashtag, “flooding out all of the resources that have been there for the last few years,” says Williams. “It’s really frustrating to have carved out this area of the internet where we can gather and then all of a sudden we see pages and pages and pages of black squares that don’t guide anyone to resources.” Around 1 am on the West Coast, Williams tweeted about it. “Do not post black squares with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. You’re [unintentionally] quite literally erasing the space organizers have been using to share resources. Stop it. Stop.”
Social media has played a critical role in organizing against racism and police brutality in the US. Online, anyone can start a social movement; platforms like Twitter and Instagram have made it possible to broadcast messages to massive audiences and coordinate support across cities. Before the mainstream media reported on the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, on-the-ground reports had already spread throughout Twitter. The police shooting of Philando Castile in 2016 was brought to light as soon as his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, broadcast a video to Facebook Live. The #blacklivesmatter hashtag itself originated with a Facebook post by Alicia Garza in 2013, after George Zimmerman was acquitted of fatally shooting Trayvon Martin.
But the same megaphone that can amplify messages can also distort them. As recent protests have spread across American cities following the death of George Floyd, who died in police custody in Minneapolis, organizers have worked tirelessly to share images and information across social media, urging followers to take action. Now, activists say that all those black squares have drowned out the information that matters.
Soon, though, the idea spread beyond the music industry. Kylie Jenner posted a black square to her Instagram feed. So did Fenty Beauty, Rihanna’s makeup brand, along with an announcement that the brand would not be conducting business on June 2. “This is not a day off. This is a day to reflect and find ways to make real change,” the company said in an Instagram post. Then it introduced a new hashtag: “This is a day to #pullup.”
By Tuesday morning, thousands of people had begun garnishing their posts with the #blackoutday and #blacklivesmatter hashtags. Thousands of others used #blackouttuesday, or added it to their posts retrospectively, so as to avoid detracting from the information posted to #blacklivesmatter. Still, many have criticized the act of posting the black squares at all. “My Instagram feed this morning is just a wall of white people posting black screens,” the writer Jeanna Kadlec tweeted. “like ... that isn’t muting yourself, babe, that’s actually kind of the opposite!”
Some activists have wondered if tagging the black square posts with #blacklivesmatter began as a coordinated effort to silence them, which other people failed to recognize when they jumped on the bandwagon. (As of Tuesday afternoon, WIRED has not independently confirmed the existence of any coordinated campaigns.)
Williams, who noticed the flood of black squares as early as 1 am on Tuesday, also raised suspicions. “For it to jump from #theshowmustbepaused to #blackoutday to #blacklivesmatter is very, very odd to me,” they say. Whether or not the posts were coordinated or entirely spontaneous, “it’s clear to organizers and activists that this fucked us up,” says Williams. “Five or six years of work, all those resources, all that work and documentation—and now we have millions of black squares?”
#Censure #Instagram #BlackLivesMatter #Memes #Culture_numérique