The Tulsa Arena War: How Big Is the 'Silent Majority'?

As we approach the US 2020 presidential elections, online controversies continue to get more complicated with every new statement and every event.

Donald Trump's choice of holding his first campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma had triggered lots of criticism from commentators; especially as it was planned in a closed arena with face masks being made optional for attendees, amid spiking numbers of Coronavirus cases in most US states.

Pro-Trump voices defended his choice to hold rallies across the country, saying that crowds have been assembling in many American cities in support of the Black Lives Matter movement without media condemnation.

Several hours before the rally kicked off, online users who aren't in favor of the US president quickly predicted a low number of people joining the rally, assuming that it points at the "declining popularity of Trump." They posted photos with different angles to prove their point.

Yet, Pro-Trump tweets insisted that tens of thousands of voters attended the event, and showed other photos depicting the big crowds that attended Trump's 90-minute speech. They also compared it to photos of the Democratic candidate Joe Biden, which had a very small number of journalists attending a press conference he held recently while maintaining social distancing rules.

The US president himself posted photos of the Tulsa rally calling his supporters "the silent majority." 

Online posts rapidly formed "a social media war' over the arena's area, its capacity, and whether or not the crowd met expectations.

A similar competition of photos to prove crowd size was launched online following Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony in January 2017, pushing some to investigate whether aerial photos were edited or not.