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Brittain, Amy. “Me Too Movement.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 Mar. 2023, www.britannica.com/topic/Me-Too-movement.

Cohen, Jason. “#blacklivesmatter Hashtag Averages 3.7 Million Tweets per Day during Unrest.” #BlackLivesMatter Hashtag, 20 July 2020, www.pcmag.com/news/blacklivesmatter-hashtag-averages-37-million-tweets-per-day-during-unrest.

El-Masri, Azza. “Fact Checks, Misinformation and Hashtag Laundering.” National Press Foundation, 31 Mar. 2022, nationalpress.org/topic/fact-check-misinformation-disinformation-journalism/.

Rho, Eugenia Ha Rim. “Political Hashtags like #MeToo and #blacklivesmatter Make People Less Likely to Believe the News.” The Conversation, 21 Dec. 2022, theconversation.com/political-hashtags-like-metoo-and-blacklivesmatter-make-people-less-likely-to-believe-the-news-126415.

Soares, Felipe Bonow. “Hashtag Wars: Political Disinformation and Discursive Struggles On ...” SAGE Journals, 12 Apr. 2021, journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20563051211009073.

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It may be easy for social media users to become bored of seeing the same political hashtags repeating throughout their feed, which may cause them to ignore and scroll past the post.

According to an online study conducted by The Conversation, "When the story included a hashtag, people perceived the news topic to be less important and were less motivated to know more about related issues," (Rho 9). Given this, political hashtags may contradict their intended purpose. Rather than bringing awareness and support to dire issues, the redundancy and overwhelming popularity may actually lead the audience to lose interest.

As seen in the graph, the interest of the general public in the #BlackLivesMatter movement seemed to diminish drastically soon after its highest point of popularity. Social media revolves around short-term trends, most of which can leave the public interest as quickly as it was introduced. In this case, the BLM movement became such a large topic of conversation so quickly, that many may have found it to be redundant after seeing so many posts revolving around the topic.

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While social media is not able to directly regulate the expression of political views, they have a few regulations that may limit its consequences.

Accounts may be suspended or banned for violating any of these regulations.

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"You may not use Twitter’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes. This includes posting or sharing content that may suppress participation or mislead people about when, where, or how to participate in a civic process," (Twitter).

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"You may not attack other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease," (Twitter).

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On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was killed by police officers after being reported by a convenience store employee for using counterfeit money. This event brought an immense amount of attention to the discrimination of people of color by the police. The tragic death of Floyd initiated the #BlackLivesMatter movement, as well as the use of political hashtags as a form of political activism.

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The #BLM movement rose to intense popularity in May 2020. According to The Why Axis, "By May 27, the hashtag had been used more than 1 million times. It peaked on May 28, used in nearly 8.8 million tweets, and remained above two million uses per day through June 7," (Cohen 2). This movement was one of the first based on social media engagement and popularized the use of political hashtags as a form of activism.

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As an active user of many social media platforms, I have seen an increase in the popularity of political hashtags. As a consumer, I would like to be aware of the potential harms and unconscious effects that I may have been unintentionally experiencing. Many claim that these political hashtags have a negative effect on the interest and education of the audience on the topic at hand, so I would like to make myself more aware of this potential concern so that I can avoid it in the future.

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Intellectual humility refers to the gap in knowledge individuals tend to have and accept when expressing an opinion.

This relates to the topic of political hashtags, as many people will support a cause being represented in the media in this manner simply because it is popular or "trending," rather than becoming informed on all aspects of the cause and building their own opinion.

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Anecdotal evidence is typically based on one's personal experience or biases, rather than a group consensus.

Those who initiate political hashtags typically have a personal connection to the issue, such as race or gender stereotyping. These individuals then express their opinion through the media as it benefits them, rather than seeing the issue in a holistic manner.

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A "different mirror" is an optimistic perspective on political issues allowing individuals to become more open to individual differences, and be hopeful for a more positive future for their culture, rather than focusing on the negative past.

The "Different Mirror" perspective is in the main guiding factor in political hashtags. Political hashtags are used to combat the potential negative past events, laws, or regulations, that have caused the issue at hand. This method of advocation is used to seek a brighter future, and a potential resolution.

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Positionality refers to how differences in societal ranking or power shape one's opportunity and influential power.

When celebrities or individuals with a large following post political hashtags on social media, their followers are much more likely to support the cause simply due to their favorability to the influencer, rather than their own opinion.

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Hegemony refers to the implementation of a dominant opinion onto everyone in society due to its difficulty to challenge or resist.

When a political hashtag becomes very popular and gains a large following, it is much easier for individuals to feel obligated to support the cause. Even if the values of the hashtag to not align with their own, many would rather chose to fake their support than go against such a largely agreed upon opinion.

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In summary, Critical Race Theory refers to how issues of race and social differences influence political movements, laws and regulations, and the media.

Political hashtags are commonly driven by the discrimination or stereotyping of minority groups, such as women, or many racial groups. Because of this, political hashtags are often designed to challenge this discrimination and the issues it may cause, such as unequal opportunity or mistreatment.

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Social Stratification refers to the categorization of a population into socioeconomic rankings based on many factors, such as wealth, education, race, or power. These rankings are inherently accepted in society and rarely challenged.

When a political-based hashtag is driven by an identifying factor, such as race or gender, those who fall into that category may feel obligated to show their support simply based on their involuntary association and may fail to become educated on all aspects of the issue.

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Nonviolent Direct Action involves a nonconfrontational approach to challenging an issue by building immense support, in hopes that the issue will be resolved.

Political hashtags are a great example of nonviolent direct action in modern society. Social media is meant to be a platform for the expression of one's opinions in a controlled manner. The main point of political hashtags is to bring awareness to an issue, and hopefully gain immense support by the geeral public in hopes that government officials will make a change.

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Liberalism emphasizes equal opportunity, autonomy, and individual rights, and promotes differing opinions and disagreements.

Liberalism is the main driving factor in why political hashtags have become such a large part of activism. Liberalism promotes the freedom of speech, allowing individuals to support or challenge the values that drive many current events and issues in society. In this case, the promotion of freedom of speech has allowed individuals to show their support toward political issues through their use of a simple hashtag.

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Emotional Political Intelligence involves a deeper understanding, empathy, and motive to benefit a group as a whole in a leadership setting.

Many factors make it very easy for audiences to support a political hashtag out of a feeling of obligation. Increasing one's emotional political intelligence allows them to make more informed decisions of support based on their personal morals and beliefs, rather than being persuaded.

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With social media becoming such a large part of our society, it is a significant resource for spreading awareness of political current events. Political hashtags have become increasingly popular for spreading awareness and support for political movements, allowing citizens to have an easy and accessible way to voice their opinions. Political hashtags also play a large role in informing populations about the events currently taking place in society.

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While political hashtage can affect any social media user, they have the largest impact on young adults. Young adults rely mainly on social media platforms, most popularly Twitter, for all of their political knowledge, while older adults may learn from watching the news or reading the newspaper. As young adults can spend hours scrolling through social media daily, they are certainly inclined to see posts regarding political current events.

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While political hashtags are an efficient method of spreading political awareness, their increasing popularity may cause some to feel overwhelmed and uninterested in the topic.
Social media allows its users to post without any factual guidelines, which may lead to misinformation being spread.
Social media users are able to follow whatever accounts they choose, typically those that they are most favorable or relate most to, which may lead to bias.

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While one user may be posting their own opinion or interpretation of a political event using a hashtag, social media posts require no sources or facts to back up what they are expressing.

According to The National Press Foundation, "It’s very hard to use facts to change people’s opinions. It’s immensely hard. The research has shown that it’s not facts that change people’s opinions, it’s emotions. Anger and fear lead to more misinformation-sharing or disinformation-sharing … so whatever is increasingly negative and increasingly panic-driven gets shared quickly,” (El-Masri 7). As political hashtags are aimed to bring support and awareness to a current event, their desire to promote their own view may lead them to post inaccurate information. Because social media platforms do not require posts to be fact-checked, misinformation has become a dire issue striving from political hashtags.

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The #MeToo movement is a movement geared toward ending sexual violence against women, rising in popularity by 2017. Amy Brittan explains the rise to the popularity of this movement with staggering statistics, "Within just 24 hours, Facebook reported more than 12 million reactions connected to #MeToo. In the following year, #MeToo was tweeted an average of 55,319 times a day," (Brittain 5). This movement was one of the most popular instances of hashtag activism after the #BlackLivesMatter movement and broadened the use of political hashtags outside of race issues.

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Social media users typically only see posts from accounts they personally chose to follow. These accounts typically align with the individuals' personal views, and may therefore be biased. Rather than hearing the complete story, biased or opinionated posts may alter one's true feelings toward the political hashtag.

According to  Hashtag Wars: Political Disinformation and Discursive Struggles on Twitter, "Hyperpartisan outlets are connected to disinformation because they produce biased information, often shared as 'another view on the facts' that shows the truth traditional media does not show (Soares). As social media users are able to follow whomever they choose, it is inevitable that their feeds will be populated with similar perspectives on political movements. Because of this, the audience often is unaware of the full story and may form a biased opinion.