In recent years, debates where women of color have been questioning the privilege white feminists enjoy when defining feminist struggles have been a regular sight on social media. Twitter is a particular social media outlet that allows for this kind of contestations to occur by mobilizing individual claims through accessible labels called hashtags. This paper studies the different claims made within the hashtag #solidarityisforwhitewomen which went viral in August 2013, showing how white privilege is both simultaneously contested and maintained on Twitter. Our analysis finds that a large part of the claims made within the hashtag call for the right to a presence in politics. This claim is made by Twitter users who identify as belonging to marginalized groups and spread to numerous external media platforms. On the other hand, we find that many of the claims within the hashtag could be understood as representative claims made by self-identified white feminists urging others to “listen and learn” from the hashtag, and thereby acting as unconscious representatives perceiving themselves as “invisible” in the discussion. This sort of representation is regarded as particularly challenging in a virtual architecture where contesting claims are demanding a presence in the public space. The paper aims to contribute theoretically to understand claims making and representation on Twitter and empirically by making those “invisible” representatives visible on a specific hashtag-led discussion.
