BlackLivesMatter 2020: An Analysis of Deleted and Suspended Users in Twitter

Abstract

After George Floyd's death in May 2020, the volume of discussion in social media increased dramatically. A series of protests followed this tragic event, called as the 2020 BlackLivesMatter (BLM) movement. People participated in the discussion for several reasons; including protesting and advocacy, as well as spamming and misinformation spread. Eventually, many user accounts are deleted by their owners or suspended due to violating the rules of social media platforms. In this study, we analyze what happened in Twitter before and after the event triggers. We create a novel dataset that includes approximately 500k users sharing 20m tweets, half of whom actively participated in the 2020 BLM discussion, but some of them were deleted or suspended later. We have the following research questions: What differences exist (i) between the users who did participate and not participate in the BLM discussion, and (ii) between old and new users who participated in the discussion? And, (iii) why are users deleted and suspended? To find answers, we conduct several experiments supported by statistical tests; including lexical analysis, spamming, negative language, hate speech, and misinformation spread.