More than a Modern Day Green Book: Exploring the Online Community of Black Twitter

Abstract

The Negro Motorist Green Book was a tool used by the Black community to navigate systemic racism throughout the U.S. and around the world. Whether providing its users with safer roads to take or businesses that were welcoming to Black patrons, The Negro Motorist Green Book fostered pride and created a physical network of safe spaces within the Black community. Building a bridge between this artifact which served Black people for thirty years and the current moment, we explore Black Twitter as an online space where the Black community navigates identity, activism, racism, and more. Through interviews with people who engage with Black Twitter, we surface the benefits (such as community building, empowerment, and activism) and challenges (like dealing with racism, appropriation, and outsiders) on the platform, juxtaposing the Green Book as a historical artifact and Black Twitter as its contemporary counterpart. Equipped with these insights, we make suggestions including audience segmentation, privacy controls, and involving historically disenfranchised perspectives into the technological design process. These proposals have implications for the design of technologies that would serve Black communities by amplifying Black voices and bolstering work toward justice.CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing; Computer supported cooperative work.

“This Isn’t Your Data, Friend”: Black Twitter as a Case Study on Research Ethics for Public Data

“…The appropriation of online content created by Black people is a continuation of the long-standing practice and tradition of appropriation from Black culture promulgated by dominant cultures in many contexts (Greene, 1998–1999; Thompson, 2015). Previous research on Black Twitter found participants lamenting about “culture vultures” like Buzzfeed who repost content to their sites without permission or, in some cases, credit (Klassen et al, 2021, p. 13).…”

“…The wives and children of the Black men experienced secondary and tertiary effects of the study and those who were alive after the settlement were able to receive compensation (CDC, 2021). As an online community, Black Twitter is nebulous and operates as an open secret on the Twitter platform, but outsiders can and do pervade the space (Klassen et al, 2021). Infiltration for the sake of research can be jarring and yield unwelcome responses just as, for example, the previously mentioned researcher who scraped tweets from the #BlackintheIvory then messaged users following that hashtag to offer the dataset.…”

“…Some people will not want their tweets amplified outside of the platform in an academic publication. Other people would prefer to get credit for their tweet regardless of whether it shows up on Buzzfeed or in your paper (Klassen et al, 2021). Instead of assuming, ask for permission to use tweets verbatim and confirm whether a person wants their username to be included.…”

“…Researchers have begun to use data from Black Twitter—a digital community within Twitter—rigorously in various disciplines (Graham & Smith, 2016; Jones, 2015; Klassen et al, 2021, 2022; A. Williams & Gonlin, 2017).…”

Black representation in social media well-being research: A scoping review of social media experience and psychological well-being among Black users in the United States

“…First, Black SM users have found community, humor, justice, and catharsis in reaction to the racist White supremacist ideology they face online through reflexive digital practice (Brock, 2020;Klassen et al, 2021). For example, Brock (2020) argues that Twitter's design and ease of access, especially in its integration with SMS technology, contributed to the creation and growth of "Black Twitter."…”