The rise of virtual protests in covid-19 pandemic

Many protesters have turned to the internet to pass their message across in the lockdown. The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered mass participation and support for different movements from people who advocate virtually.

Image: Black lives matter Manchester protest

There has been a rise in protests across the UK. Various groups have defied all odds to get their voices heard on issues ranging from climate emergency, home-for all protests, awareness on child trafficking, exploitation and abuse, with the largest and most trending being the anti-lockdown protests and the black lives matter movement.

A group called “save-our-children-uk” hopes to bring change within the government law on the fight against child trafficking, exploitation and abuse. They aim to raise awareness, engage with survivors and offer a safe, loving environment where they can share their experiences and stories.

Mcgingley Lesley, Facebook group creator of Save-Our-Children-UK, said: “We are proactive, and we want to bring change within the law. We are aware that education and skill is paramount with our young children, they need to be educated and that’s a big one we are also looking into.”

Save our children UK is a large movement with team members who are professionals in hypnotherapy and stress management to deal with trauma, anxiety, fears, education expert to help with the training, care and social workers, mental health support workers, among others.

Photo: Mcgingley, her daughter and husband

On organising a protest in Covid-19 lockdown, Mcgingley said: “You would think it made things more difficult, but this is a new thing and none of the people that have organised this movement have ever done anything like this before.

“We really don’t have anything to compare it to but what I can say is that it hasn’t been difficult, we haven’t had any restrictions in Liverpool, the council hasn’t stepped in, the police haven’t stepped in, it’s all been very peaceful.

“We advocate that anyone that feels they have to self-isolate, where a mask, social distance, that’s their choice and we completely support that.

Mcgingley a housewife and carer, is also a survivor of abuse and wanted a platform where she could make an impact and with the strong support of her daughter, husband and Lori Forster one of the organizers, she created a Facebook group that has over 2,000 members across different countries.

She added: “We are still in the infancy process of this group and I don’t think any of us foresaw how big this was going to be but at the moment we are all linked through Facebook messenger and we all speak and communicate when we need to.

“I think this pandemic has helped because people have had the time to sit down and really look at what is happening out them. It has helped people to wake up. Its’ worked in the children’s favour.

She said a major challenge the group has faced is conspiracy theories that surround the movement, but they have remained focused on their cause. They are looking to set up office meetings where other members can join via zoom, create petitions and have a phone line as a platform for survivors to be able to peak their truths and feel supported.

Virtual tools and social media have played a great role in the success of these protests in communication, mobilization and awareness. With schools closed, and people working remotely, there has been more virtual participation in events posted on social media and a wider reach has been created for the organisers.

The black lives matter protest has been a major movement across the UK during the lockdown. With many sub-groups cut across the country, a group called ‘Allblacklivesuk’ came together in June to form a youth-led movement to fight racial equality and justice for all black people in the UK. The group has been able to organize protests in Bristol, Manchester and London.

Tyrek Morris, 21, Student & Co-founder of @allblacklivesuk, London, said: “We’ve just announced our next protest on September 6th in Manchester, Bristol and London. We took a break for a bit because we’ve been protesting the whole summer straight every week and so obviously once we’ve all got university, we are all going to try and take as much protesting as possible but also going to take time to study and also keep in mind that we’ve still got loads of work that we are doing”

In terms of organising protests in lockdown, Tyrek said: “It’s been challenging to say the least. One thing if you do know a protest, you don’t have to think about masks, PPE, social distancing, the risk factors that go into it. Whereas, in Covid you have to think about people’s safety because obviously we’ve been met with a pandemic. You have to think about how many would probably sign up because we are in a pandemic, how many people are going to be against it, how much negative press you are going to get.

“Whilst we still have people who are still like ‘all lives matter’, ‘white lives matter’ ‘black lives don’t matter’ all that you now have that added to ‘you are protesting during a pandemic’ and unless its outside of that, that’s some of the things we have to worry about .

The group communicated through Zoom calls when they could not meet up, but when the lock down was eased, they had more face-to face socially distanced meetings. “with social media you get a bigger outreach to people, it is much easier to get hold of people through social media that it is through word of mouth. Social media was how my first protest got vast attraction in the first place.

“With regards to the pandemic, it gave us a lot of opportunity to make the protest bigger because people were not going to work, all at home and everyone was at home on their phones, so they had no reason not to be liking and sharing. It presents us with a good opportunity to get people to care.

“Our progress so far has been very good, the conversation has been very prevalent now, it’s more spoken about, a topic of conversation now which makes people uncomfortable which is a good thing.”

Tyrek added that the next focus of the group is to encourage more participation of black people in media. “There’s not a lot of black journalists out there, it’s a very white dominated industry so I’d like to get a lot of black people into the media, help with bursaries, buy equipment’s, media training so that we can also create our own narrative as black people.”

In the past weeks, some protest organizers have been fined and arrested by the police, but it has not stopped people from going out to spread their word. People who have not been able to attend physically have streamed virtually, made videos to show solidarity and posted pictures. Virtual protest to many has been a platform to protest and still stay safe.