Twitter played a powerful role in sustaining & strengthening the fight for racial justice. The truth about racist and violent policing in America - a truth that Black people have lived with and known for a century - was exposed to the world on Twitter.

The posting of cell phone videos of brutality and murder by police which challenged “the official story” has forever changed the narrative and created space for reimagining what public safety can and should be. And that is the first step of real transformation.

Remember when people kept saying that w/a Black President & AG we no longer needed civil rights activism & lawyering? First images of #MikeBrown’s body, then videos of #WalterScott, #PhilandoCastile & too many others showed what many of us had been saying. There’s another America beyond the DC optics.

The Ferguson uprising was the first sustained civil rights protest in the U.S. in which Twitter played a central role. Don’t think they didn’t notice.

Twitter was essential to sustaining a cohort of millions of ordinary people, policy leaders, influencers, activists, lawyers, artists, committed to democracy during the Trump years. It was a main conduit of communication, information sharing, education, & encouragement.

Hard to imagine how we would have made it through COVID - with all of the uncertainty and fear, and with the deliberate disinformation churned out daily by the President - without Twitter. We are in an age of pandemics and will need to ensure we can communicate as robustly.

The exposure of everyday racism & the willingness of white pol - often women - to call the police on Black people for walking, barbecuing, birdwatching, watering flowers, entering their own homes, shopping, was exposed to the world on Twitter.

This was significant. Ending the plausible denialibilty of ordinary white ppl who expect the benefits of white supremacy and are prepared to call police when Black ppl do not follow their commands - was a critical contribution to the understanding of how racism works in the U.S.

Don’t think that all of this wasn’t seen & understood. Don’t minimize the significance of the brutal dismantling of this site. It is of a piece w/the overall attack on the health of our democratic institutions by forces that have no use for or interest in democracy.

@ifilljustice - Exactly! So much information was exposed on Twitter that was not being discussed on MSM. I learned on Twitter that much of the violence being perpetuated during the BLM protests was conducted by militia and other ultra-conservative groups. The real-time video footage exposing the actions of conservative groups showing up to the protests to commit violence and destruction was important for the movement. But MSM wasn't showing us this truth! I hope Mastodon, or some other site, will be the new platform the public needs so we can all see what is happening in our communities, society, and world.