Divergent discourse between protests and counter-protests: #BlackLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter

摘要

Since the shooting of Black teenager Michael Brown by White police officerDarren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, the protest hashtag #BlackLivesMatter hasamplified critiques of extrajudicial killings of Black Americans. In responseto #BlackLivesMatter, other Twitter users have adopted #AllLivesMatter, acounter-protest hashtag whose content argues that equal attention should begiven to all lives regardless of race. Through a multi-level analysis of over860,000 tweets, we study how these protests and counter-protests diverge byquantifying aspects of their discourse. We find that #AllLivesMatterfacilitates opposition between #BlackLivesMatter and hashtags such as#PoliceLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter in such a way that historically echoesthe tension between Black protesters and law enforcement. In addition, we showthat a significant portion of #AllLivesMatter use stems from hijacking by#BlackLivesMatter advocates. Beyond simply injecting #AllLivesMatter with#BlackLivesMatter content, these hijackers use the hashtag to directly confrontthe counter-protest notion of "All lives matter." Our findings suggest thatBlack Lives Matter movement was able to grow, exhibit diverse conversations,and avoid derailment on social media by making discussion of counter-protestopinions a central topic of #AllLivesMatter, rather than the movement itself.