Black Lives Matter and Instagram: The Rise of the Social Justice Infographic

By Nile Brown

“I just did an interview with a Black Panther yesterday, and he was talking about how paper is the best way to organize folks,” said Felisa Concepcion, a 26-year old community leader and activist from south Sacramento, California who operates the account @defundsacpd.

“Like back then, they had a newspaper and that was the best way to organize folks. And the best way to organize people now is social media. And that's the easiest way, it's free, it's accessible with anybody with a phone, which is almost every American.”

Social media, namely Instagram, informed Americans about social justice issues and the unjust death of George Floyd, which contributed to what many to believe to be the largest movement in U.S. history. On June 6, the Black Lives Matter protests peaked with half a million people demonstrating in nearly 550 places across the country. Polls from June 4 to June 22, suggested that a range of 15 million to 26 million people participated in the demonstrations. That’s 5 times more than the prior holder of the record of the 3.3 million that attended the 2017 Women’s March. Amid a global pandemic, people took to the streets with demands to defund the police with actions that resulted in the creation of a self declared autonomous zone, the removal of monuments of those associated with racism, and the decrease of 1.4 billion from police budgets—all in the purpose of anti-racism that left the majority of the U.S. in support of the movement.

What’s the difference from past movements? The involvement of white people.

Nearly 95 percent of counties that had a protest recently are majority white. Instagram, which holds the second largest amount of white users after Facebook, has become the online space for learning about activism, allyship, and solidarity with the Black community. Dr. Akilah Cadet, the founder of the diversity anti-racism consulting firm Change Cadet, uses the Instagram platform to educate primarily white people about how to use their privilege for good while unlearning racism, while also validating the feelings and opinions of Black, Indigenieous, and people of color (BIPOC) to a growing following of over 20 thousand.

“So I use it by one, literally sharing words on these brick posts. And they're white bricks because white people have to do the work,” Cadet said about her posts. They typically feature anti-racist phrases like ‘Black Lives Matter is not a sensitive or political issue, it’s a humanity issue.’ This phrase was repackaged and posted by another user, which received almost 200 thousand likes. Cadet continued, “It’s to help people think about allyship and become an accomplice. And then I use my privilege as a Black woman who owns a business, through pictures to share and express what it's like as a Black person, as a Black woman, as a person with disabilities to educate.” Her following has doubled since June, an upward trend that is present in most social justice focused accounts. It’s the efforts of these accounts, mainly headed by BIPOC, that urged white people to become involved with the Black Lives Matter movement.

One of the largest in this category is @soyouwanttotalkabout, which grew from 10 thousand followers at the beginning of June to an audience of over one million by early August. The account @whydontwediscuss began on May 31 and now has 141 thousand followers. @Zenerations gained over half of their 60 thousand followers, by the beginning of August. Even Concepcion’s local based @defundsacpd, which was created in June, gained most of its 5,506 followers by the end of June. The latter three accounts were formed after George Floyd’s murder. They utilize Instagram’s carousel feature that allows for users to swipe through up to 10 photos—something they used to create infographic-like posts that Vox has coined as ‘social justice slideshows.’

Instagram and Youtube influencer Liya Hizkias, who over the summer used her platform to call for intersectionality within the movement, recalled that, “Everyone was just reposting infographics...” Dr. Cadet found the time brought an, “Interesting mix was happening between swipe educational posts and pictures,” when referring to the slideshow infographics. Nicole Charky, a professor of Communications at Loyola Marymount university, found that these infographics took a new form on Instagram.

They are characterized by big bold text, gradient colors, and weighty title slides. The format became so recognizable, it became a meme on Twitter as people imagined how it would’ve been used throughout history. The Vox writer noted that, “the carousel was predominantly used for things like relationship reveals or photo outtakes,” but it was repurposed in June with the slideshow infographics, which makes them unique in their use of the feature, by co-opting modern brand aesthetics. The typical format begins with a topic slide, contextual information about the topic, and ends with a call to action (that often include resources, direct actions, where to learn more, etc.).


“I was talking to a few of my friends, and I found out that one of my closest friends at the time was extremely ignorant on [the murder of George Floyd] and had quite bigoted views. After this, I was inspired to create this account to attempt to provide resources for as many people as possible to stay educated and keep others educated as well!” Annie, conscious of her privacy, wrote via email. Toronto native, 17-year old, and sole founder and creator of @whydontwediscuss; her account is full of social justice slideshows. She uses Apple’s free Keynote software to create these infographics that tackle a wide range of social issues; from white fragility to China’s Uyghur concentration camps. Annie believed that these social issues won’t be fixed without people, especially youth, becoming more aware and inspired to be involved in fighting for change.

Similarly, @zenerations covers social issues and was birthed from the mind of Sophia Delrosario. She created the popular account and news outlet on her 16th birthday out of boredom during the first stay at home order in the pandemic, which went viral with posts related to the Black Lives Matter movement. They credited a slideshow about fashion trends that originated from Black culture, which led to a follow by representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and has over 618,000 likes, and a slideshow about the Portland protests that was reposted by Ariana Grande for their tens of thousands of followers. Zenerations also has a blog with over 100 contributors that has the same goal of stories centered around the people of Generation Z. “We present information and articles in a way that Gen Z can interpret them and make them easily accessible and understandable because sometimes like I'll read an LA Times article, and I'm like, ‘What are you even saying right now?’ ” remarked Salma Alejo, the organization’s marketing director and board member. She continued, “We like to talk about topics that normal news media sources won't talk about or stray away from.”


Neutral blues, humans without faces, and large text draw the eye to their unique design scheme. A scheme that was developed by their 16-year old design director, along with Delrosario. “I think when people think of us, they think of our design first. But we're trying to make it a little bit more info based, since we're kind of going towards more of a news media direction,” said Alejo. As a junior at Mount St. Mary’s University, she is the oldest board member out of the nine on it, since most are in the core of Generation Z’s age range—high schoolers.

Although, Charky advised caution when looking at these infographics in light of rampant social media misinformation. “I don't recommend people share those all the time, unless it's like the ACLU... unless you know the subject—that you trust the source.”

Annie admitted that social media can be misleading sometimes, added that, “It's extremely important that we don't just believe everything we see on the internet, including my account.” As her account and others act as quasi-journalists, she continued, “I make sure to include sources, so people can fact check and find further information if they wish!” Zenerations and most other accounts shared a similar assertion, but Alejo tacked on that they are young and have made mistakes in their reporting as many traditional news outlets make from time to time. Specific to these Instagram infographics (and photos on the site abroad), words or slides on them cannot be deleted or changed for correction, meaning that users can continue to reshare incorrect information if it’s included in a slideshow for instance.

However, a benefit of the platform is the comment section: anyone from around the world can easily suggest an edit that can be pinned as a comment for everyone to see, or the caption can be edited. Alejo was enthusiastic about how people affected by the issue, part of the community, or the culture often made suggestions. “Recently, we did an article on ‘preferred pronouns’ and we were told to not call them ‘preferred.’ We ended up writing an edit and we took it off the article.”

Instagram has always been a very casual platform. Whereas, Twitter has always been politically driven, helping to facilitate events like the Arab Spring in the early 2010s and Facebook known for its reshares of political content. Facebook and Twitter are susceptible to nefarious influences like disrupting elections, spreading misinformation, and filter bubbles which have been widely documented on the platforms. Instagram has 66 percent more daily users than Twitter with 500 million users and Facebook faces an aging user base. Tiktok is an emerging hub of political discussion, but it does not have a massive user base like Instagram and faced allegations of overt censorship on hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter. From style to food to travel to the birth of modern influencer culture galore, Instagram posts that carried a political or socially relevant message prior to this summer were not as widely spread. It’s why the most liked post is a picture of an egg and the accounts with the most followers are mainly influencers, actors, musicians, and sportsmen.

One of whom handed over access to her 104 million followers this summer. Kourtney Kardashian along with 49 other white women let 50 Black women take over their accounts in a campaign with the goal of amplifying Black women’s voices. On June 10, the Share Your Mic Now campaign reached a combined audience of 300 million accounts. Black women activists, political pundits, and with several other backgrounds shared, “The important work that they’re doing in order to catalyze the change that will only come when we truly hear each other’s voices.”

On June 2, over 28 million Instagram users flooded the feed with black squares. The action was part of #BlackoutTuesday. Critically panned by activists for drowning out resources since users would also use vital hashtags like #BLM, it was viewed as slacktivism or performative activism since it seemed to support the movement yet there was not any further intention beyond the post. It began as #TheShowMustBePaused—the brainchild of two Black music executives who sought for the industry to halt business for a day, to reflect on how white people exploit and make money off of Black talent. The campaign was hijacked by people outside the industry who morphed its purpose, similar to what’s happened with QAnon and #SavetheChildren.

Instagram became the medium to show support for the Black Lives Matter Movement by sharing your platform, databases of resources, petitions, one click email templates with demands and where to donate and protest. These new uses of the platform by users have pushed the app to add features like voter resources, COVID-19 pop ups when it’s mentioned, and stickers in support of Black Lives Matter. After recently graduating from Howard University with a masters in social work, Felisa Concepcion found purpose in policy analysis and writing for nonprofits. Her skills also came into use when she created @defundsacpd after the murder of George Floyd. She uses it to share what zoom meetings are happening for organizers, when city council convenes, and protest information. Around the country, similar accounts popped up like @justiceforgeorgenyc and @inthistogether_la, which all contributed to the massive turnout at protests.

“After everybody was talking about defunding the police, I was like ‘I know what that means! I got my masters in this! I know exactly what this means, I can talk about it!’ So... I made flyers, templates so other cities could use it and just put [city council dates in] and did a whole video like ‘This is how you find the city council agenda.’ ”

Early on, she also created infographics that detailed issues like local 911 alternatives for non-violent issues. The alternatives came to fruition after a friend had a mental health crisis and she knew that involving the police could lead to escalation, especially since people with untreated mental illnesses are 16 times more likely than other civilians to be killed during an interaction with them. In a series of more recent posts, Concepcion demanded justice and humanized the father of her niece, Willie Brown Jr., who was found hanging from a public park’s basketball rim.

“If folks really just push the language they use on social media, they get blocked or the posts get removed,” noticed Concepcion about Instagram’s account suppression after a mutual’s account made political statements that resulted in their blocking. Her observation is not unfounded. Alejo alleged that the Zenerations account was seemingly shadowbanned for a week, which means that their account was active but their posts do not show up in users' feeds, and their follower growth slowed as a result. As a Black Influencer Liya Hizkias questioned why she is not verified on Instagram, even with her 384 thousand subscribers on YouTube. Dr. Cadet’s posts have at times been censored from using the word ‘racist’ and is not verified either, despite features in publications (a criteria for verification) like Elle and Forbes. She stated that, “People who are actually doing the work, aren't getting verification. And verification has a lot to do with opportunities, your platform, and how you can leverage your voice.”

On June 15, CEO Adam Mosseri committed to review Instagram’s algorithmic bias, harassment, distribution, and account verification toward Black voices. On Sept. 9, he provided an update that seemingly addressed each concern with actions like expanding the criteria for verification and the creation of an equity team. However, the inequity seemingly continues. Those grievances from Concepcion, Alejo, Hizkias, and Dr. Cadet were expressed in October and early November.

Charky posits that Instagram and social media alike were not and still are not designed for social justice activism. “So prior to the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter movement heating up right now in 2020, Instagram used its algorithm to inform product sales,” she says with a light chuckle. “The main goal was to see the stuff that you love and that you want to buy to inform you to make more decisions and track your data. All of these social media platforms are really fancy data collection firms... And really when we are not paying for a service. We are the ones who are the product.”

On the future of activism on the platform, Dr. Cadet stated that, “It’s not something that should just fall again on Black people, on Black women. It's something that is institutionalized and ingrained and ingrained in every single person on social media and I hope it becomes more of an accountability place as well.”