When the Narrative Fractures: How Freer Social Media Is Reshaping Protest Politics
Public skepticism toward the LA immigration protests points to greater independent thought on social media
By Cruz Garcia
In early June, immigration protests erupted in Los Angeles after a coordinated U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid resulted in the arrest of 118 individuals—less than 0.01% of the city’s undocumented immigrant population. Roughly one-fifth of those arrested had prior convictions for gang-related, drug or sex offenses. Yet videos of confrontations with police, burning flags and chants flooded TikTok, Instagram and X within hours. Activists and major outlets rushed to frame the raid as an unprecedented attack on immigrant communities. In response, protests ensued across the city.
But something felt different. The protests didn’t provoke a moral consensus—they sparked a debate.
Even as an Angeleno myself, my opinion was largely shaped by my social media feed, which offered a fragmented view: Latino conservatives ridiculed the protesters; Asian business owners circulated memes depicting Korean store owners during the 1992 Rodney King riots; Black users on Twitter bluntly told their followers, “This isn’t our fight.” The imagery of unified struggle was nowhere to be found. Instead, the performance of protest collided with a public increasingly skeptical of its sincerity.
This skepticism toward protest was a new development. The Black Lives Matter uprising of 2020 was marked by near-universal solidarity from those in positions of power. Public figures, influencers, corporations and major institutions embraced the moment. But in hindsight, many of those protests were built on assumptions and fabrications that didn’t hold up to deeper scrutiny. The George Floyd case became a global movement before key facts were known. Today, with freer access to diverse narratives online, audiences are more cautious.
And so social media hasn’t just amplified protests—it’s fractured their narrative power. As platforms like X and Meta embrace freer speech policies and community-driven moderation, users have more tools to contest the dominant storyline.
This is particularly true among Black and Latino users, who are now more likely than white users to get their news and political content from platforms like Instagram, Facebook and X. According to internal Meta reporting, Black and Latino users remain among the most active on U.S. social media overall—both groups outpace white users in terms of time spent on social platforms and likelihood of using social media as a primary news source. On X, Black and Latino users not only remained steady during Elon Musk’s ownership transition, but they also grew in number—rising to 11 million and 14 million users, respectively, while over 10 million white users left the platform.
The narrative that marginalized users depend on platform restrictions for protection has not only been disproven—it was never based on evidence to begin with. Indeed, the assumption that marginalized groups are ideologically uniform and easily offended is both inaccurate and condescending. These communities don’t rely on content moderation to shield them from difficult ideas—they rely on social media to circumvent the blind spots of traditional media, which is losing influence among these demographics. Their presence has persisted and grown in less moderated spaces, suggesting not fragility, but agency.
Today, protests operate in a different environment. Whereas BLM drew strength from its moral clarity and synchronized messaging, today’s protest movements must contend with an audience that talks back. With the rise of community notes, AI fact-checkers and citizen-led rebuttals, protest videos are just as likely to be questioned as they are to be celebrated. Performative politics no longer goes unchallenged.
That’s why the recent LA protests triggered a different reaction. They may have captured headlines, but they didn’t capture hearts. In fact, the No Kings protests arguably might be more genuine than its critics allow: With an estimated 10% of Los Angeles residents undocumented and nearly 20% of children in the region having at least one undocumented parent, the fear of targeted enforcement isn’t imagined—it’s deeply felt. Still, several Latino-majority jurisdictions that have been most affected by immigration shifted red for the first time in 2024—driven less by symbolic politics and more by concerns over crime, inflation and safety.
The left has long depended on symbolic alignment with communities of color, but less-restrictive social media platforms are eroding that bridge. The myth of monolithic political solidarity among marginalized groups is being debunked in real time. And that’s not necessarily bad news: It opens the door for more nuanced, community-specific engagement. But it does mean that protests—especially those that lean on symbolism more than substance—are now less persuasive and, in some cases, counterproductive.
Importantly, this shift doesn’t mean Black, Latino and other frequent social media users are moving en masse to the right. What it signals is a new era of political independence, one shaped by digital exposure to competing narratives. These voters are less swayed by slogans and more informed by timelines and comment sections. The idea that activism will rally a shared emotional response is being replaced by a more fragmented and interrogative political culture.
This opens a unique space for libertarians and independent voices. Social media trends already reflect this: Libertarian content creators have gained traction by positioning themselves outside the binary, offering policy skepticism and institutional critique without the baggage of party loyalty. While recent trends indicate that political content on social media is shifting rightward, many of the platform’s most prominent voices defy traditional conservative labels. Figures like Joe Rogan, Elon Musk and Candace Owens are better described as anti-establishment independents—bound less by ideology than by a common distrust of centralized power.
If there’s ever been a time to mobilize a third voice in politics, this is it.
In the end, this moment serves as a reminder that the fight over narrative is no longer top-down. Protests are no longer guaranteed moral authority. The public—especially those historically labeled as “oppressed”—is engaging with politics on its own terms.
To keep discourse honest, we need platforms that remain open. Free speech isn’t just a constitutional value—it’s a cultural one. And in this new political era, where narratives fracture as fast as they form, it may be our best defense against performative politics masquerading as public truth.
Cruz Garcia is an independent policy consultant based in Los Angeles and a former Young Voices Fellow. He writes frequently on immigration, free speech and politics.