Does Instagram Activism Actually Do

Anything?
Social media is very popular among the youngest generation;
however, they have taken and altered the ways these platforms
are used. Apps such as Instagram have gone from a photo
sharing platform to a place where people share their beliefs,
educate people on world while issues and a place of advocacy.
Campaigns, for example, Black Lives Matter gained a lot of
attention as well as support on Instagram with hundreds of
people sharing posts about awareness of the issue and
petitions people could sign to help, such as the petition
demanding justice for George Floyd, which reached over 20
million signatures.
Instagram was created in 2010, it was created for sharing
photos with captions, it was never created or meant to be a
place for advocacy. However, this has not stopped the youth
from using this social media app to share their beliefs and
allow themselves to have a voice for thousands of people to
hear. Given the current political unrest, global pandemic and
accelerated change to the climate, is there any surprise more
and more people are taking to Instagram to make a change.
After the death of George Floyd, it came to highlight that
there is still segregation between races, and something needs
to be done. By the end of June 2020, more than 4,700
demonstrations of protests had occurred in the United States,
with a daily average of 140, it was estimated around a total
of 26 million participants. Not only were there political
protests on the streets, but Instagram also became an
increasing political platform amid to the Black Lives Matter
protests across the United States. In fact, Instagram has now
become the platform for widespread political conversations,
whether it is about the global pandemic, the government,
racism or climate change. Instagram has also become one of the
main platforms for conversation about how the United States
can combat racism. With the BLM (Black Lives Matter) protests
happening many Instagram pages were created to spread not only
awareness but also information about this issue. For example,
the Instagram page @blklivesmatter, who had first posted 30TH
August 2014, blew up and gained much publicity in 2020 when
the BLM protests started. The Instagram with 1,141 posts has
now reached 4,3 million followers who they not only gain
support from but also are able to spread awareness and
information to them.
Millions of people including celebrities
took too Instagram sharing a black screen
to show support for the Black Lives
Matter campaign

Teen Vogue magazine interviewed Nicole Cardoza who is the

founder of an activism page on Instagram, Anti-Racism Daily
with nearly 650,000 followers. Cardoza talks about how she
tries to push her followers to take action, not to just share
her posts and keep scrolling. She also elaborated about the
negative effects of Instagram activism, she said “Instagram is
a really tough communication channel for getting facts
straight, if people do not swipe past the first slide, which
happens most of the time, it is harder to take action”. This
could be part of the negative side of Instagram activism
because without going onto the other slides of the post and
reading the reast of the information about the topic it can
lead to people interpreting the story incorrectly but also
could lead to them missing how they can take action. In the
article where Nicole Cardoza it states how awareness is
helpful, but it is not enough to make a change.
I went and interviewed a Sixth form student at Wheatly Parks
School Tia Khan who has taken an interest in activism on
social media by sharing and making her own posts. She also was
influenced by the Black Lives Matter campaign, she said “I
first started to take an interest in Instagram Activism in the
first lockdown after George Floyds death and the start of the
Black Lives Matter protests”. Tia talks about how she was
influenced by others when she said, “I started to take an
interest in activism on social media as I say a lot of people
posting and sharing posts about the Black Lives Matter
campaign, so I began to read the posts which I learnt a lot
from and then started sharing the posts myself.” She agreed
that the posts she has seen on social media can be informative
“I have gained so much from reading the posts on learnt so
much more about the topics being shared but also global issues
I had no idea about”. However Tia also agreed that Instagram
activism can be something quite negative, “As much as
Instagram activism has been majorly a positive thing for me I
think there can be negative parts of it, for example there can
be negative parts of it, for example there can be times people
read a story incorrectly or misinterpret the story which leads
to false information being spread, or sometimes people post
incorrect stories and fake news for publicity on there page”
she also stated “this can be very damaging for Instagram
activism pages that are solely just for bringing awareness.”
Instagram activism comes with many positives, it helps spread
awareness and people learn so much about different global
topics from it however that doesn’t mean it doesn’t come with
its faults. As good as Instagram activism is at spreading
information there can be times where the information is
misinterpreted, or miss read which can lead to fake news being
spread or even sometimes accounts spread fake stories just for
their own publicity. Apart from that their has been many
positives that come from the activism on Instagram.