The hashtag #blacklivesmatter climbed TikTok’s trend list with 3 billion views.
Just a few months ago, Taylor Cassidy, 17, spent hours waving her arms trying to take the last dance move, the “Renegade”.
Everything changed when Cassidy watched videos of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and finally started creating video sketches on TikTok to illustrate the racial injustice she and her friends face on a daily basis.
“Because the BLM movement has been present in society for so long, my generation was able to use TikTok to spread awareness through the lens of a youngster’s state of mind,” said Cassidy, who is black. , to Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. .
Cassidy, who has racked up 1.6 million followers on TikTok since joining last November, is one of the millions of users who are helping turn the favorite destination for short viral music videos and pranks into a first stop for youth activism as a protest against police brutality has spread across America.
“The movement will not only be designed to raise awareness of injustice in society, but it will go further, teaching the importance of voice and calls to action to end brutality,” said Cassidy.
The hashtag #blacklivesmatter boosted TikTok’s list of trends with 3 billion views Tuesday morning. TikTok superstars like Charli D’Amelio, whose 60 million followers represent nearly double the number of American HBO subscribers, paused to show dance moves to discuss George Floyd, a black man from the Minnesota whose death as a white policeman knelt on the neck. sparked a national debate on race and power.
“I will continue to spread these messages and be an ally,” said D’Amelio, who is white, in a message that garnered more than 47.7 million views and 12 million likes this weekend.
The emergence of TikTok as a platform for political discourse for adolescents follows a tradition of media platforms evolving beyond the initial conceptions of their founders, such as the role of Twitter in the protests of the Arab Spring in 2011 and the role of the MTV cable television network in galvanizing young voters in the early 1990s.
“The Arab Spring was able to mobilize on Twitter. Now we see something similar on TikTok,” said Kadisha Phillips, a social media strategist, who pointed out how quickly the content spread to TikTok.
“Even though it has become a place for viral dancing, TikTok has also become a storytelling platform,” said Phillips. “TikTok has taken up an interesting space because it allows people to tell stories very quickly.”
The extension of TikTok’s role from the place for cute dance routines to the platform for civil disobedience comes at a complicated time in society that has been accused by the black community of marginalizing African creators. Americans.
Monday night, TikTok posted a blog entry (https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/a-message-to-our-black), written by Vanessa Pappas, general manager of TikTok US and Kudzi Chikumbu, director of the creative community, who apologized to the African American community and committed to making changes. He also said he would donate $ 3 million to unspecified nonprofits that help the black community.
TikTok was criticized last week for an issue that caused hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter and #GeorgeFloyd to appear as if they had received no views.
“We understand that many assumed that this bug was an intentional act to suppress the experiences and invalidate the emotions felt by the black community,” the company said in a blog on Monday. “We know we have work to do to regain and repair that trust.”
TikTok’s big moment also comes when its top new hire, Kevin Mayer of Walt Disney Co, took over on Monday as CEO of the Chinese company.
The new leadership comes after tensions between the United States and China over trade, technology and the COVID-19 pandemic. Because TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance Technology Co and is very popular among American teens, U.S. regulators have questioned the security of the personal data they process and whether their Chinese property poses a risk to national security. .
The company has also faced charges of removing political content, including a Guardian report https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-how-tiktok-censors-videos-that -do-not-please – last September, the company asked moderators to censor videos on sensitive subjects to the Chinese government such as the Tiananmen Square demonstration, based on internal documents disclosed.
“TikTok does not delete content based on China-related sensitivities,” the company said in a blog post (https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/statement-on-tiktoks-content-moderation -and-data- security-practices) on October 24, 2019, in response to reports. “The Chinese government has never asked us to delete any content and we wouldn’t do it if they asked for it. All right.”
“DON’T STAY SILENT”
Lex Scott, Founder of Utah Chapter of Black Lives Matter, said she has been using TikTok to organize since March when she joined TikTok and prefers it to Facebook Inc that content spreads much faster on TikTok.
“The younger crowd doesn’t want to be on Facebook and they’re not on Facebook. They’re on SnapChat and TikTok,” said Scott.
Scott, who has nearly 90,000 subscribers on TikTok compared to his hundreds of Facebook followers, said he is now using TikTok to educate the public about police brutality and get at least 150,000 signatures on an https petition: //bit.ly/2XRjISw for a police reform bill.
The petition on Change.org has been signed at least 148,000 times due to Scott’s follow-up on TikTok.
Other TikTokkers have published first aid tips for protests, filmed protests and performed sketches to highlight their experiences with inequality.
Activists appreciated receiving a boost from TikTok superstars who drew attention to the protests and directed supporters to calls to action.
TikTok star Loren Gray said on Monday that she would stop publishing her typical content out of respect for the protests and urged her 44 million followers to donate and sign petitions. Gray also pushed other TikTok influencers to donate to the cause.
“For my peers, please don’t be silent right now,” said Gray in his message. “You have so much influence on this generation and it is important for you to use your voice in addition to using a hashtag and calling yourself an ally.”
On Monday, TikTok seemed to embrace its new role as a forum for political expression.
“TikTok is a way for users to express themselves. This expression is often joyful, but our community is going through a particularly deep period of anxiety and even indignation, and much of the content of the application this week clearly reflects those experiences, “said Pappas of TikTok in a statement. “Now more than ever, we stand in solidarity with the black community.”
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
