Google's Me Too Rising maps the power of the #MeToo movement

Google Trends latest tool visualises when and where the hashtag was trending throughout the last couple of months

It has been seven months since the first allegations against American film producer Harvey Weinstein were revealed in the The New York Times – an exposé that won journalist Ronan Farrow a Pulitzer Prize – Hollywood and other male-dominated industries started to unravel and the #MeToo movement encouraged thousands of woman to share their sexual harassment stories on social media.

The hashtag quickly went viral worldwide and has since been searched in 195 countries, that is every country in the world. For that reason, and in light of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Google Trends launched Me Too Rising, an interactive map of the world that allows you to read all the news coverage on the #MeToo movement since October last year, filterable via date and location.

Founder of the ‘me too.’ movement Tarana Burke, who has been helping survivors of sexual assault for over a decade, took to Twitter to announce the news. 'I am so excited to finally be able to announce the new Google website #metoorising,' she wrote. 'From the beginning we have said this is a People's Movement and through the power of Google you can actually see how our global community continues to spread and rise.'

Burke also talked about the power of the campaign in a recent conversation with Google's Senior Counsel on Civil and Human Rights Malika Saada Saar. 'We started this movement well over a decade ago and over that decade it has grown and reshaped itself according to the needs of survivors. When survivors speak up together in unison, the world has no choice but to listen. And when the world starts listening, we start searching for answers, we start searching for solutions. For the first time people are listening and connections are being made across the world.'