“Unlike Anything Else”: Pex Finds Unprecedented Strong Showing for Black LIves Matter Protest-Related Content on Social Media

Pex, the independent music and video analytics and attribution platform, has compiled the most viewed and shared videos on Twitter from May 25 - June 5, and found something unprecedented: By a wide margin, the top videos are related to protest events across the country and their anti-racist messages.

Videos posted by witnesses on the ground, often by experienced journalists caught in the heat of the moment, are being shared widely. The most shared videos document key events (the on-air arrest of Black CNN journalists), inappropriate tactics and police brutality toward protesters and peaceful bystanders, and breathtaking moments of pain and hope as protesters debated, sang, and asked police and National Guardsmen to join the march.

This content has taken over Twitter in a way previous protests, viral challenges, and political outrages don’t come anywhere close to. Eighty percent of the Top 100 Twitter videos uploaded from May 25 through June 5 are related to Black Lives Matter, with an additional 10% related to race/racism.
 
By comparison, for the 2017 Women’s March, less than 10% of the top videos were related. In fact, more videos uploaded during that time related to President Trump than to the march or to women’s rights. When Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court, again less than 10% of the top 100 videos were related. Even major trends like the Bottle Cap Challenge lag far, with only 4% of its content in the Top 100.
 
“What's been happening with the online news coverage and user generated content of the Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality is unlike anything else that we’ve ever seen on social media platforms,” explains Wilson Hays, Pex’s Head of Business Development. “Not only have the recent uploads related to Black Lives Matter received more views than any other societal moments in recent years, but it has completely dominated the sheer volume of videos being uploaded and viewed for over a week.”
 
“Having 90% of the top 100 videos on a social platform at any point in time be related to one specific topic isn't only extremely out of the ordinary but it has never been seen before,” Hays continues. "We've seen the power of user generated content time and time again, however, when UGC is attached to global protesting, it makes for substantially heightened viewership to embolden the cause and it's irrefutable: the truth is in the data. This moment has unequivocally captivated the attention of social media and we can say that for the first time, we've all been watching this together.”
 
 
Highlights from Pex’s findings:
 
Total views:
BLM: 1.6 billion

Bottle Cap Challenge: 1.4 billion

Kavanaugh: 1 billion

Women’s March ~667 million (due to this being over 3 years old, we didn't have 1:1 views available and therefore we had to estimate the view counts. We see a clear signal that the Women's March is the smallest of the 4)

Top 100 Twitter Videos: Black Lives Matter Protests
80% BLM related

90% Race related

Top 100 Twitter Videos: Women’s March
6% Women’s march related

7% Women’s rights related

22% Trump related

Top 100 Twitter Videos: Bottle Cap Challenge
4% related

Top 100 Twitter Videos: Kavanaugh
4% related

About Pex:
Pex (www.pex.com) is the world’s foremost audio and video copyright search engine, automatically finding snippets as short as 1 second and delivering independent video and music analytics on dozens of UGC platforms worldwide. Pex’s Attribution Engine is the future of copyright management, allowing rights holders to license content in real time and online platforms to audit content at the point of upload, comply with new legislations, and block toxic content. Clients include major music and film rights holders, online platforms, and other key content producers and administrators.