Thread by @Shayan86

#dcblackout is trending in the US. 447,000 tweets with the hashtag sent in just several hours. They claim communications in or out of DC were shut down to control the protests. But there doesn't seem to be any evidence suggesting a blackout occured. So what actually happened?

Here's the tweet from the internet monitoring service Net Blocks confirming there was no indication of a mass-scale shutdown in Washington DC last night. So are the viral claims on social media completely made up? Let's take a closer look

This seems to be first account that tweeted the hashtag, at around 23:00 DC time. He/she then asked @Cernovich about it and did not make any other references to the alleged blackout. If anyone has any other evidence of the first use of the phrase or hashtag, please DM me

This is the second tweet, which doesn't particularly do well. But then it wass shortly followed up by another one. That tweet seems to have started to catch people's attention. Over the next hour, several other accounts tweeted the hashtag but it did not really pick up

This is the first moderately big tweet of the night. The user says she's based in Pennsylvania so unless she was travelling, she probably just saw the rumours on social media and tweeted about it

By early morning DC time, it's pandemonium. The rumour's spreading like wildfire. Here's the biggest tweet of the night. 26k RTs, 65k likes. Many people saw the tweet, but didn't see the follow up where she says she in "not even from America". She now acknowledges it was "a lie"

Here are a selection of a few more big tweets from last night. I've looked into all of these accounts. There is no evidence suggesting any of them is based in DC. Again, seems to be a case of people seeing the rumour in their feeds and tweeting about it

CORRECTION: That first tweet was actually posted around 02:00 DC time. So much later. Folks based in the states, do the protests continue until that late? I'm eager to know. DM me please!

My wonderful colleague (who everyone interested in disinfo should follow) @O_Rob1nson found this post on a Facebook group with 46,000 followers. Earliest mention on Facebook. In fact, about 30 mins before the first tweet. It's now either been deleted or removed by Facebook

Here's a look at the geographical spread of the hashtag in the US. As expected, most of the tweets came from Washington DC and the states surrounding it. I see no evidence of suspicious activity at all. Just a rumour that seems to have gone viral

Also confirmed here when you zoom into states/regions with the highest share of tweets and also the key phrases used in the them. People in DC see the hashtag going viral, get curious and tweet to find out what's going on. Again, if you're in DC, please DM me to confirm

And here's a brief post summing up the story behind the rumour and the hashtag on the @BBCNews live page about #GeorgeFloyd protests, written by @O_Rob1nson and me

Interesting statement from Twitter. They've suspended some spam accounts amplifying #DCBlockout

Read our piece and analysis of the hashtag please. A classic case of an emotional rumour going viral during a major developing event
bbc.co.uk/news/technolog…