On Aug. 25, 2020, 17-year-old Illinois resident Kyle Rittenhouse walked among protesters supporting the Black Lives Matter movement in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and fatally shot two people with a semi-automatic rifle. He was arrested the following day in his hometown and was charged with multiple felonies, including first-degree intentional homicide, posession of a dangerous weapon while under the age of 18, and reckless endangerment. Rittenhouse told sources that he was there to protect local businesses, despite no indication that he was asked to guard the site.

Rittenhouse’s legal team attended a pre-trial hearing with prosecutors to review outstanding issues before the trial begins on Nov. 1. During the pre-trial, Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder determined that the people shot by Rittenhouse may be called ‘rioters’ or ‘looters’ but that attorneys should not use the word ‘victim.’

“Let the evidence show what the evidence shows, that any or one of these people were engaged in arson, rioting or looting, then I’m not going to tell the defense they can’t call them that,” said Judge Schroeder.

What has the conversation been like on social media? At the Social Media Listening Center, we used a keyword search for “Kyle Rittenhouse” and “Trial,” “Kyle Rittenhouse” and “Victim,” and “Kyle Rittenhouse.” While this search may not be fully extensive, it provides a glimpse into the online conversation.

In the first 24 hours after the news was announced, the search found more than 261,000 tweets discussing this topic. Unsurprisingly, the overall sentiment of this search was 95.9% negative and 4.1% positive. However,  it is difficult to gauge audience sentiment from sentiment analysis alone when discussing serious issues such as homicide. To get a better look at the conversation and the sentiment surrounding this topic, we paid close attention to the word cloud capturing the most common words and phrases associated with this search:

To gain even further understanding of the sentiment surrounding this news, we looked at the most commonly used hashtags related to the search. We found that #kylerittenhouse, #removejudgeschroeder, and #antifa were at the top. When searching the keyword “Kyle Rittenhouse,” we found that some of the top themes of discussion were “Shooting People,” “Murderer,” “Self Defense,” and “Victims.”

Who exactly is engaging in this conversation? It appears that the majority of mentions surrounding this topic are from male Twitter users in the 18-35 age demographic in the United States. The top influencers on Twitter are primarily news outlets, including CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Fox News. Other influencers include news reporters and columnists such as Haley Willis from The New York Times and Will Bunch from The Philadelphia Inquirer.

1. So you're probably seething about the judge in the Kyle Rittenhouse case saying lawyers can't call the 3 people he shot "victims," while there's a chance they can be called "rioters" or "looters"

Did you wonder what's up with this guy? I did.

Buckle up

— Will Bunch (@Will_Bunch) October 27, 2021

As Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial approaches, @chashomans investigates for @NYTmag what he and so many other armed men were doing in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the first place. https://t.co/MqZAp8zj70 pic.twitter.com/u1hmXBXb2t

— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 26, 2021

The keyword search also revealed that Reddit users are engaging in the subreddits r/Politics, r/NotTheOnion, and r/Libertarian. One of the most popular posts on r/Libertarian linked to an NPR article about the news and received 800+ upvotes and 1.5K+ comments. The comments contained numerous statements criticizing the article for being misleading. “It’s certainly a weird situation to us on the outside looking in, but the Judge’s requests are hardly nefarious if one reads beyond headlines,” commented one user.

The volume trend of this conversation has steadily declined since the news was announced. However, this conversation is likely far from over. We expect to hear more about this topic once the trial officially begins on Nov. 1. In the meantime, we’ll continue monitoring this topic and others from the Social Media Listening Center.

Author: Kendall Phillips

A Rally Around the Guns:  Richmond Virginia

By: Kinley DuRant & Kenedey Ward

What to Know about the Rally

Is there a better way to make a statement than getting 22,000 like-minded people together on Capitol Hill to protest a change in legislation?

This is exactly what occurred this past Monday, January 20, 2020. The group of gun-rights activist came to make a statement against Governor Ralph Northam’s proposition to limit the right to bear arms in the state of Virginia. One of the elements that must be notes about this day is the fact that the rally occurred on Martin Luther King Junior day as a representation of peace and unity.

Due to recent debate surrounding the Second Amendment right via both media and politics, this protest sticks out for more than one reason. Both Democratic and Republican party supporters were present at the rally, demonstrating a controversial topic can have a peaceful option.

Here are some basic things you should know:

• 22,000 in attendance with only one arrest made and a large majority of attendees were armed

• Based on the numbers: it appears that much of the democratic conversation focused too much on violence potential of this protest via social media prior to the protest 

• Holding the Rally on MLK Day was meant to send a message of peace

• The conversation surrounding the rally on social media was 55.7% positive
  • Most negative comments were focused on the governor of Virginia
  • Governor Northam using barricades in front of the capitol as a “safety barrier”

As seen in this graph, there was a big increase in the conversation surrounding the event on Monday:

Along with a variety of commentary and post from influences such as Tomi Lahren, where she notes the inclusivity in terms of the participants in the rally.

In the last Tweet, we see a variety of the commonly used hashtags that focus on the peacefulness of the rally as a whole, particularly given the number of guns at the event.

Twitter Update on the Rally

Based on the information that is mentioned on the conversation surrounding the event as well as the results of the rally, the overall impact demonstrated a positive display of protesting without incident; an idea practice of our First Amendment rights.  The Republican conversation post-rally honed in on the level of stability and harmony that the gun-right activists brought to defend their 2^nd Amendment Rights.

• All data was collected through an analyzation of the above keywords in the Social Media Listening Center on January 21, 2020 dating posts back the last 7 days.