five figures to understand the magnitude of the movement on the Internet

On October 15, 2017, in the United States, the world of cinema was shaken by the case of Harvey Weinstein, this former Hollywood mogul accused of rape and sexual assault on young women (he has since been sentenced to twenty-three years in prison).

Actress Alyssa Milano then posts on Twitter « If you too have been sexually assaulted, reply to this message by writing ‘me too' ».

The call is heard, relayed, broadcast. In twenty-four hours, nearly 792,000 tweets with the keyword are published. Five years later, Visibrain, a social media monitoring tool, looks back on the evolution of the movement on Twitter, the platform that served as a sounding board for the mobilization.

► 54 million tweets worldwide

In five years, the #MeToo movement has generated 54 million tweets worldwide. It was in 2018 that there was the greatest impact, with 18.3 million messages sent, twice as many as the previous year (7.6 million).

The year 2019 comes in second place on the podium with 11.6 million tweets, slightly more than in 2020 (10.5 million). From 2021, the level drops (3.8 million). So far, 887,129 messages have been posted on Twitter about it in 2022.

► 14.7 million tweets written in English

The majority of #MeToo tweets are written in English, with 14.7 million tweets posted in five years. Far behind, Japanese is the second most used language, with 1.5 million tweets. It is followed by Spanish (844,755), and French (669,719). Korean comes in fifth place, with 520,883 tweets.

► 870,200 tweets sent in France

France has recorded 870,200 tweets sent in five years, or 2% of the world total. This can be explained by the creation in our country of other hashtags. Thus 490,000 tweets were published with the keyword BalanceTonPorc and 74,200 with #JeSuisVictime.

As in the world, it was in 2018 that the hashtag was the most tweeted in France (196,467), just ahead of 2019 (166,437). The years 2020 and 2021 follow each other, with 152,797 and 153,814 tweets respectively. Since January 2022, 117,844 tweets have been sent.

► 165,176: the number of tweets sent with #MeTooIncest

In France, the hashtag #MeToo has been declined according to the news. The most used, #MeTooIncest, emerged with the January 2021 release of Camille Kouchner’s book, The Grand Family, in which she accuses political scientist Olivier Duhamel of incest on her brother. At the time, 36,200 tweets were posted in twenty-four hours.

In total, this keyword gathered 165,176 tweets. 62% of them are written by women, and 38% by men.

With 48,437, the #MeTooPolitique was also very shared, like the hashtag #MetooGay (36,964 tweets) and #MeTooTheatre (27,652).

► 116,000 tweets written at the time of the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp trial

If the number of tweets has been decreasing since 2020, the #MeToo movement is not running out of steam. He emerges again when a new case of sexual harassment comes to light. At the time of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp’s trial, for example, 116,000 tweets were posted. The actress accused, among other things, her ex-husband of physical and sexual violence.