- Following the Queen's death, many social media users expressed criticism of the monarchy.
- On Twitter, it provoked severe backlash, with some people facing retribution from their employers.
Rumors about the imminent $4 began swirling in the morning of Thursday September 8, as notes were passed around Parliament, causing a ripple of mutterings and concerned looks among journalists and ministers.
When the Palace announced that "doctors were concerned for the Queen's health," Twitter erupted with jokes and memes — met immediately with backlash to the jokes. And backlash to the backlash.
The mayhem on Twitter didn't stop when, at 6:30pm British Summer Time (BST), Buckingham Palace confirmed the Queen's death; it intensified.
Three days after the Queen's death, social media remains divided as to whether criticizing the monarchy right now is in the best of taste. But the debate has breathed new life into another: questioning the Royal Family's relevance in today's world, particularly in light of its $4.
Some Twitter users who discussed the monarchy's racist past were locked out of their accounts, or investigated
On TikTok, following the Queen's death, $4 $4 $4 videos criticizing the monarchy's colonial history, as well as $4 and $4 celebrating the Queen's death.
However, there were no reports of TikTok users being chastised by their employers, called out by billionaires and $4, or being flooded with hateful messages as a response.
On Twitter, the debate played out much more fiercely.
—Sophie Corcoran (@sophielouisecc) $4
In March 2021, Oprah Winfrey's interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle aired to much fanfare. In a particularly explosive segment, Harry and Meghan said that $4, criticizing the Royal Family for failing to call out racist coverage of Meghan by the British press, and $4 made about their son's skin tone by an unnamed Royal.
Coming a year after the renewed Black Lives Matter movement, which $4, it ignited a conversation about the $4, which goes back centuries and includes $4, $4 made publicly by the Queen's husband Prince Philip before his death in 2021, and $4.
That conversation resurfaced following the news of the Queen's death. And it didn't go down well.
Trevor Sinclair, a former soccer player and current sports radio commentator, is being investigated by his employer Talksport over tweets posted on the day of the Queen's death, $4. Sinclair's tweets have since been deleted, but $4 $4 $4 that he suggested people of color should not be expected to mourn the Queen's death as racism had been allowed to "thrive" under her reign.
—talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) $4
Journalists Tirhakah Love, Jemele Hill, and Eugene Scott were among those $4 for similar social-media comments in an article headlined "Have they no shame?"
$4, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, posted a $4 on September 8, saying, "I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating." The tweet was removed and $4 is a message saying it "violated the Twitter rules," but the wheels of backlash and controversy were in motion. Carnegie Mellon $4 her comments, while $4 $4 Twitter $4 tweeted in support. Even $4.
—Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu (@SholaMos1) $4
$4, Anya said she has been locked out of her Twitter account, but "the hate is coming into my email inbox."
Social media remains divided on whether the death of influential figures should lead to debate surrounding their legacy
The question of how soon is too soon to criticize the deceased is not one social media has grappled with well in the past. Following the death of Kobe Bryant, people who tweeted that he was accused of rape faced fierce backlash. People who critique political figures in the wake of their death, from $4 to $4, often lead to controversy — whether they're pointing mild shortcomings or problematic pasts.
This tension may come in part because social media users are not bound by the rules of respectability that traditional media is.
"Social media has really lowered the barriers of what's considered polite and decent," Robert Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at the Newhouse School of Public Communications Syracuse University, $4. "But I don't want to say that's necessarily a bad thing because we were a little too polite and decent about a lot of things that we didn't talk about that we should have been talking about."
Despite the backlash, Anya stands by the comments about the Queen that she says got her locked out of her Twitter account. "I did not wish her death. I did not tell anyone to kill her. I said nothing except wishing her the pain in death that she caused for millions of people," she $4. "There's not going to be any apology from me. I stand by what I said."
For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.>$4