equality goes viralHave you recently been “seeing red” on Facebook? Does it seem like suddenly all of your friends have pictures of two little pink lines? Well, worry not, it’s no bug or hacker- it’s just the latest social media & social justice movement gone viral. In this case, the profile pictures express solidarity with the Human Rights Campaign in the wake of the Supreme Court voting on the future of same-sex marriage. On Tuesday, an estimated 2.7 million users changed their profile photos to some iteration of this logo, spreading the word about their cause.

Facebook Data Science researcher Eytan Bakshy stated: “For a long time, when people stood up for a cause and weren’t all physically standing shoulder to shoulder, the size of their impact wasn’t immediately apparent. But today, we can see the spread of an idea online in greater detail than ever before. That’s data well worth finding.”

Will this have any effect on the decisions of the Supreme Court justices? It may be too soon to tell. But this viral campaign definitely goes to show that, with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, it is now easier than ever to show support for causes that you feel strongly about.

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