The death of George Floyd sparked more protest march across and outside the United States. Many of these protests resulted in police violence, breaking of properties, and looting.
With this, the Dallas Police Department (DPD) thought of a way to monitor the illegal activities from the protest by encouraging the public to share videos or photos as evidence. The announcement was made via Twitter where they encouraged online users to download the iWatch Dallas app if they want to report possible crimes anonymously.
However, instead of receiving crime tips, thousands of users flooded the app with pictures and fan cams of their favorite K-pop artists. Using the hashtags #WhiteLivesMatter and #whiteoutwednesday, the massive tweets volumes aimed to drown out “white-supremacist messages” and replace them with “anti-racist posts” instead.
According to Buzzfeed News, the tweet was initiated by a Twitter user named ash⁷, who posted the screenshot of Dallas Police’s tweet with a caption that reads:
“The only reason to post fan cams in 2020 is to protect the identities of BLM protestors[.] Go do your thing”.
On the same day, the DPD posted that the app has had some technical difficulties and will be shut down temporarily.
Here are some tweets of Kpop fans who participated in taking over #WhiteLivesMatter:
White supremacists watching the #whitelivesmatter and #whiteoutwednesday hashtags being taken over by Kpop stans pic.twitter.com/oFEvpgoV1S
— That Aint It (@bonitafrobum) June 3, 2020
#whiteoutwednesday
STAN BTS @BTS_twt pic.twitter.com/oo7kxUcrwG— Filtersolostan⁷ (@jiminsouioui) June 3, 2020
our black amigos need us the most. cancel yourself right now #WhiteLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/Atw8KAY0H3
— bri ◡̈ (@brilliantrevluv) June 4, 2020
https://twitter.com/ThoughtsUnholy/status/1268531019315122176?s=20
Take spam #WhiteLivesMatter #BlueLivesMattter pic.twitter.com/Ejovj37VHp
— Ktheflagguy (@ktheflagguy) June 5, 2020
It has not been confirmed yet whether the K-pop fans caused the traffic which eventually lead to technical issues.
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