#BlackLivesMatter > Black Lives Matter
While the Black Lives Matter movement is creating awareness and attempting to stop racism, the movement would not be doing as strong without its social media aspect. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram are platforms this movement uses to spread content and ideas in hopes to stengthen the movement and end racism and oppression. Thus far, the movement has been successful at creating such awareness.
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Researchers believe that social media may not be the best route for the movement to take or that it should be controlled and more precise regulations. Christina Coleman, journalist for Newsone, interviewed former Black Panther, Rosemari Mealy who had strong feelings in regards to this specific topic. In Coleman’s article, she cited Mealy as saying if the Black Panther Party has access to social media they would have surely used it, however, she believes the BLM movement relies on it too heavily. “I think that we should use it. But we need to have, organizationally, more control over how we’re going to use the technology” (Mealy, para 13). Mealy is arguing that although social media is a very valuable aspect of the BLM movement, there is no set process to follow when being an activist on the various social media platforms. The Black Panther Party had very direct rules and regulations, they made sure that what they stood for was upheld to the fullest potential, so with Mealy arguing that the BLM movement needs more structure it comes from her background with the Black Panther Party. Thus, that could possibly come from the movement not having a direct leader whereas the Black Panther Party had direct leaders and founders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Newton and Seale were widely known for their activism in the African-American community.