Huge support for Blackout Tuesday but campaigners are concerned

There was wide scale support for “Blackout Tuesday” yesterday, although campaigners remain concerned that it could suppress protest and black voices. Blackout Tuesday is an initiative to go silent on social media, reflect on recent events, and stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Individuals, companies and organisations posted a black square on their social media accounts in protest at the murder of American George Floyd, but otherwise remained silent.

“Blackout Tuesday”, a protest originally organised by marketing directors Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas, who are both black women, called for a day of pause on June 2 across the music industry for what they describe as a pause in “the long-standing racism and inequality that exists from the boardroom to the the boardroom to the boulevard.” Since then, it has been taken up by many other organisations showing their support and solidarity with the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement. Forbes reported that over 28 million Instagram users have posted a plain black square along with the hashtag #blackouttuesday, before pausing their usual social media feeds for the day.

In the UK, TV channels and radio stations changed their programmes to mark “Blackout Tuesday”. BBC Radio 1Xtra hosted a series of discussions and debates in support of the black community, with song choices reflecting black pride, empowerment and identity. BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 broadcast moments of reflection. Some commercial stations, including Kiss, Magic and Absolute Radio were observing a social media blackout “to stand with the black community to fight against racism and support our presenters, musicians, colleagues and listeners”.

ITV daytime show This Morning briefly went dark, showing a black screen with the words “Black Lives Matter”. MTV went silent for eight minutes – marking the length of time Floyd’s neck was knelt on.

However, campaigners have pointed out that the black squares people are sharing on their social media platforms are filling up the feed, which could make it difficult to find posts from black creators and the information they have to share. As well as this people have encouraged users to not use the BlackLivesMatter hashtag when taking part in Blackout Tuesday, as this too makes it harder to find useful posts and information. Instead, users have been asked to post the images without any hashtags, or to use the specific #BlackoutTuesday one.