Read on Twitter
I'n going to start a thread on the Reopen / Gridlock protest trend. This is a work in progress and I'm putting it up in hopes that others who have similar info chip in.
I have a system that I've been relying on for more 20 years which will probably make data-driven academics a bit cringy, but it's worked out ok for me so far. I focus on Facebook not Twitter bec the people & movements I monitor are wordy. Before Facebook, I focused on MySpace.
FB data isn't available in any meaningful way, so I cherrypick/divide popular accounts into two categories:
1) canaries (they react fast to a changing environment)
2) butterflies (they have a large following, are gossipy, and when they grab a canary's claim, it spreads fast
1) canaries (they react fast to a changing environment)
2) butterflies (they have a large following, are gossipy, and when they grab a canary's claim, it spreads fast
So let's look at the recent protest trend. One canary I'm focusing on is a real estate guy in North Carolina. He's on the board of trustees of UNC and he's a mainstream conservative, based on his pre-COVID 19 timeline.
When the governor shut down NC, he expressed frustration that his community would suffer and on March 31st, he decided to protest at the state capitol in Raleigh. He was asking the governor to hold regular briefings to update people and share the plan of what happens next.
He planned protesting every week until the governor answered him.
According to his timeline, something changed on April 4th. He posted an anonymous article from The Federalist which convinced him that the shutdown was bad science, that was something more sinister was happening.
According to his timeline, something changed on April 4th. He posted an anonymous article from The Federalist which convinced him that the shutdown was bad science, that was something more sinister was happening.
On April 4th, the website https://endtheshutdownnow.com/ was registered and withing a few days, other state level "reopen" websites were set up with matching logos, language, etc.
On April 7th, he again protested in Raleigh all by himself. His signage quality was now professional and his message had hardened.
He got some local publicity from the news, and later that day the ReopenNC was set up and grew at a remarkable pace.
April 7: 0 members
April 12: 15,000
April 13: 20,000
April 19: 58,000
April 7: 0 members
April 12: 15,000
April 13: 20,000
April 19: 58,000
Similar "reopen" groups. These groups were set up between 4/11 and 4/15 which means that, so far from the ones I've checked out, NC hit first by at least 3-4 days.
By the time the guy's next one-man rally was to take place, the ReopenNC group had 20,000 and roughly 150 people joined him at the capital. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article241999131.html
Two things happened at the rally that set off a bit of storm in lime-minded groups on Facebook.
1) When the police stopped the gathering, one of the protesters who refused to leave was arrested for violating the stay-at-home order https://twitter.com/KaplanABC11/status/1250101103175380992
1) When the police stopped the gathering, one of the protesters who refused to leave was arrested for violating the stay-at-home order https://twitter.com/KaplanABC11/status/1250101103175380992
And 2) the Raleigh Police Department tweeted the following: https://twitter.com/raleighpolice/status/1250111779574894594
This spread like wildfire through conservative news outlets.
