Meeting

Social Justice Movements and Twitter: Digital Revolutions in the United States and Abroad

Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Kacper Pempel/Reuters
Speakers
Meighan Stone

Adjunct Senior Fellow for Women and Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations

Brooke Foucault Welles

Associate Professor, Northeastern University

Presider

Adjunct Senior Fellow for Women and Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations

Women and Foreign Policy Roundtable Series and Women and Foreign Policy Program

In recent years, activists in global social movements such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, and #BringBackOurGirls have harnessed social media to raise awareness of injustice and counter prevailing narratives. How has Twitter reshaped activism and to what extent has the platform empowered marginalized groups to achieve political victories? Brooke Foucault Welles, associate professor at Northeastern University and coauthor of the book #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice, and Meighan Stone, adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and coauthor of the book Awakening: #MeToo and the Global Fight for Women's Rights, to discuss the role of Twitter in modern social justice movements in the United States and abroad, including the implications for race and gender equality.

Top Stories on CFR

Netherlands

Far-right candidate Geert Wilders emerged as the biggest political force in Dutch politics in November’s general elections. What does his win mean for the Netherlands and Europe?

Myanmar

Myanmar's military has recently suffered a string of defeats—but the U.S. government seems unprepared to face the country's potential state collapse.

Ukraine

The authors, including a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, UN Undersecretary-General for Legal Affairs, Founding Chief Prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the inaugural U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, urge the imperative of prosecuting alleged Russian crimes of aggression in Ukraine, and present two practical options for doing so.