{"id":9773,"date":"2020-08-04T10:00:04","date_gmt":"2020-08-04T15:00:04","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2024-04-13T23:45:05","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T04:45:05","slug":"outside-u-s-floyds-killing-and-protests-sparked-discussion-on-legislators-twitter-accounts","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2020\/08\/04\/outside-u-s-floyds-killing-and-protests-sparked-discussion-on-legislators-twitter-accounts\/","title":{"rendered":"Outside U.S., Floyd\u2019s killing and protests sparked discussion on legislators\u2019 Twitter accounts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"People
People attend a Black Lives Matter protest outside Lewisham Police Station in London on June 3 after a video emerged showing six officers restraining a Black woman nearby. (Guy Smallman\/Getty images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Protests and debates over racism and police brutality have spread far beyond America\u2019s shores<\/a> since the death<\/a> of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer on May 25. And public officials have joined the discussion in many countries \u2013 including in four nations where Pew Research Center has been tracking the Twitter activity of national legislators<\/a> for much of the past two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Indeed, many legislators in these four countries \u2013 Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom \u2013 directly addressed Floyd\u2019s killing and the subsequent protests on their Twitter accounts, according to a new analysis by the Center. The analysis looks at predominantly English-speaking countries where lawmaker tweets can be analyzed in a standardized way, but these nations are far from the only ones where Floyd\u2019s death has commanded attention among political leaders<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 59% majority of British members of Parliament who tweeted between May 26 and June 10 posted about Floyd or used the phrase \u201cBlack lives matter\u201d or the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, according to the new analysis. Smaller percentages of national legislators in Canada (44%), Australia (26%) and New Zealand (14%) did so, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

How we did this<\/div>