The impact of social noise on social media and the original intended message: BLM as a case study

Abstract

Social media has become a platform for information diffusion, voicing concerns of existing inequalities and raising public awareness of various social and societal issues. Despite the social good, social media has become a fertile ground for spreading misinformation, hate speech and conspiracy theories. The death of George Floyd in May 2020 triggered a series of protests worldwide in support of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and triggered a debate about equity, inclusion and social justice. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of misinformation and social noise on the original intended message of BLM using data from the Twitter hashtag ‘BLM’. Results from topic modelling have shown the strong presence of misinformation and social noise. Such information was most probably intended to influence, mislead and dilute the original intended message. However, despite the effort to distort the original message of BLM, results from sentiment analysis show that users’ opinions of the BLM movement remained positive.