The Dallas Police Department tweeted on Saturday,May 30, asking people to send videos from on-going protests through the iWatch Dallas app.
"If you have a video of illegal activity from the protests and are trying to share it with @DallasPD, you can download it to our iWatch Dallas app," the tweet wrote adding that reporters may remain anonymous.
In the last few days, thousands of people across the United States have been protesting against police brutality, triggered by the death of George Floyd who was accused of buying cigarettes using a $20 counterfeit bill. According to the New York Times, the First Squad came on site after 17 minutes, and then Floyd was unconscious and showed no signs of life after being pinned to death under three police officers.
Dallas Police's iWatch app currently down after being spammed by K-Pop videos
Instead of sending protest videos, Mashable reported how Twitter users found another way to protest by flooding the official police app with unrelated videos like memes, K-pop fancams, cartoon snippets, and even footage of the police themselves doing some brutal actions on protesters. This would make the protest video buried under the spam.
Some people submitted videos and memes of SpongeBob SquarePants and the Bee Movie script to the iWatch app while others sent clips of police violence. However, the largest amount of content came from K-pop fans who shared videos of their favorite groups to spam the police app.
Their concerted efforts seemed to have worked as Dallas PD announced that iWatch Dallas was temporarily down due to technical difficulties the following day. While there was no clear indication of what the difficulties were, Twitter users are giving credit to the spamming efforts of K-pop fans.
Also, in support of the protest, many fans switched from making phrases and hashtags for their K-pop favorite groups trend on Twitter, to instead tweeting using the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.
Normally, K-pop fans hold a regular activity to promote their favorites, stream their music, and make them trend on social media. However, on Sunday, May 31, fans of various K-pop groups have decided to make other important hashtags trend online.
For instance, BTS Armys censored the names of group members to prevent them from trending, particularly when lead rapper Min Yoon-gi started a live stream on Thursday.
Even when Blackpink and Lady Gaga's "Sour Candy" trended on U.S. Twitter upon its release, many Blinks or Blackpink fans agreed to refrain from promoting it while NCT 127's fans, also known as "NCTzens," asked each other not to avoid distractions from protests.
Protesters flocked to the streets in various cities to oppose police brutality and racism, set off by Floyd's death on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The case was the most recent death of a black man in the hands of law enforcement, which prompted people to protest on the streets amid the risks of coronavirus.
Read also: Google Joins Protest vs. George Floyd's Death by Postponing Android 11 Beta Launch
