The government of Ukraine announced a “Twitter-storm” against Russia on Thursday as its military confronted territorial assaults on several fronts, mimicking the social media strategies the U.S. State Department has used against violent actors in the past.
The Ukrainian government’s official Twitter account urged its international supporters on Thursday to launch a “Twitter-storm” against Russia in a global awareness campaign aiming to garner widespread support against the Russian invasion.
This initial tweet from the official Twitter account of Ukraine was followed by a call for individuals to “Tag @Russia and tell them what you think about them”.
The move mirrors similar initiatives undertaken by the Democrat-controlled United States when met with conflict or violent events around the world.
During the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, current Biden administration White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki held a sign reading “#UnitedForUkraine” in an apparent effort to deter Russia from further invading when she was a spokesperson for the State Department.
Despite virtue signalling their support via Twitter the Obama administration did little to help Ukraine in 2014. Russian leader Vladimir Putin invaded and colonized Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, an occupation that continues to this day, and backed Russian proxies in eastern Donbas who continue to wage war for the past eight years.
The Democrats have used similar Twitter approaches to other conflicts. Former First Lady Michelle Obama was among many to join the “#BringBackOurGirls” social media campaign in response to 276 Nigerian schoolgirls being kidnapped at gunpoint by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram in 2014.
The campaign was successful in raising awareness of the situation online but lacked follow-through in the real world, as 8 years later 113 of the girls are still believed to be held in captivity, with their celebrity and political supporters nowhere to be seen.
Mass school kidnappings are still an ongoing problem in Nigeria that has intensified following the end of international media attention. Thousands have reportedly been abducted since 2014 and many sold into sexual slavery.
In response to the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris where 12 individuals were murdered by Islamic extremists following the publishing of an image of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, which is prohibited in Islam, Obama’s White House initially snubbed a solidarity march joined by 40 world leaders but eventually sent the then-Democrat Secretary of State John Kerry along with 1970s soft rock song James Taylor, who performed Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.”
Taylor’s performance did little to stem the rise of Islamic terror attacks in Europe, as multiple high profile Islamic attacks occurred after the event in Europe. Islamic radicals executed another major attack in Paris later that year at the Bataclan concert hall, killing 130 people.