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LANDOVER, MD - SEPTEMBER 24: Washington Redskins players during the the national anthem before the game against the Oakland Raiders at FedExField on September 24, 2017 in Landover, Maryland. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) Getty Images
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#TakeAKnee tweets massively outnumber #BoycottNFL tweets

How the fight over Trump and the NFL is playing out on social media
By Maclean's
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September 26, 2017

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The debate over NFL players kneeling during the U.S. national anthem has emerged as the latest proxy battle in America’s ongoing culture wars.

President Donald Trump’s Twitter attack on the league’s protesting players, and then his call for his supporters to stay away from NFL games, fuelled a barrage of #BoycottNFL tweets over the weekend. Meanwhile as players responded to Trump’s threats by kneeling en masse, supporters of the protest responded with the hashtag #TakeAKnee.

We asked Keyhole, a Toronto-based social media analytics company, to compare the traffic on the two hashtags. It’s clear which side dominated the conversation on Twitter.

Over the course of the weekend and until Tuesday afternoon, #TakeAKnee showed up in nearly 2.2 million unique tweets. At the highest point on Sunday, between noon and 6 p.m., the hashtag appeared in nearly 70,000 unique tweets. By comparison #BoycottNFL had been used in just over 390,000 unique tweets. That hashtag saw its biggest uptake on Sunday, corresponding with Trump’s suggestion that fans refuse to attend games unless protesting players were fired or suspended.

READ MORE: To sit or stand? It’s Sunday night in the NFL.

Here are three of the most popular #TakeAKnee tweets from the time period, according to Keyhole:

And three of the most popular #BoycottNFL tweets:

https://twitter.com/peterboykin/status/912137213348945920

https://twitter.com/crazd70/status/912021294320881664

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