Last week, after a Mississippi grand jury declined to bring criminal charges in the death of Nolan Wells, the 18-year-old Black college student who disappeared on Horn Island while traveling with a group of white friends and was later found dead, Black users on Threads demanded justice.
\n\n“Just so it’s abundantly clear: The state of Mississippi is covering up the murder of Nolan Wells,” user @_taexoxo posted two days after the September 21 decision. The case has incited racial tensions nationwide.
\n\n“This year a grand jury handed down an indictment for a pool of water turning green, but didn’t indict when a black kid was found floating face down in water!” commented comedian D.L. Hughley.
\n\nBlack Americans have never shied away from calling out America’s racial hypocrisies—Twitter served as an indispensable tool as the Black Lives Matter movement swelled in the 2020s—but the chatter on Threads was uniquely charged for Wells. It was the latest bit of evidence showing that the platform has emerged as a vital artery of the Black social media ecosystem, at times even rivaling the influence Black Twitter once embodied.
\n\nIn 2021, when I first explored the cultural expansiveness of Black Twitter, I wrote that it…
Original source: https://www.wired.com/