Project Ethos & Scope
The Digital Narratives of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement archive is built on an ethos of care with every decision being made with impact and empathy in mind. This archive is comprised solely of digital content from Instagram and Twitter between the months of May 2020 and September 2020. You may notice while browsing the archive that most of our items have been made anonymous, this was done intentionally. This archive does not, and is by no means meant to fully encapsulate, stand in, or represent the 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests or the subsequent digital protests. We recognize the ongoing volatility that exists online from counter movements and wanted to ensure the safety of the content creators, anti-racist educators, and other online users highlighted in this archive by keeping their identities anonymous. We recognize that there are strong and compelling arguments against this level of anonymization, which we take seriously and are also actively considering implementing these changes in the future. Though we have taken great care in protecting the identities of content creators, anti-racist educations, and other online users, we have made some exceptions to these rules. The Digital Narratives of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement archive does not protect corporations, government agencies, publications, or other entities such as police departments. This is a human-centric archive that believes in holding institutions accountable for their words, actions, and inactions.