Having French flag picture filters was justified
By Ayush Patel | Staff Writer
On Nov. 13, ISIS terrorists attacked the city of Paris through bombings and shootings, killing at least 129 people. Soon after the attacks, people from all around the world began to use French flag filters on their Facebook profile pictures. Many people opposed the massive spree of filtered profile pictures since other attacked countries were not recognized. Suicide bombers and shooters attacked public areas in countries, such as Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, similar to the attacks in Paris. However, changing profile pictures to support France was justified. In fact, France has been a long-time ally to the United States and the filtered Facebook profile pictures increased awareness for terrorism throughout the world.
France has aided the United States throughout history, since the Sept 11, 2001 Al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Federation Center. In a Times article American writer David Sedaris discusses the aftermath of the attacks in the United States.
“Businessmen and widows called the embassy offering their beds to Americans stuck at the airport. And at noon on the official day of mourning, pedestrians stopped in their path and cars pulled off the road to observe the three minutes of silence,” Sedaris said.
In addition, Sedaris stated that the French decorated the Eiffel Tower with models of the World Trade Center, along with a motto in English and French that read Les Français N’oublieront Jaimais (The French Will Never Forget).
Acknowledging their assistance surpasses allowing people to realize French contributions to the US. The attacks could have occurred anywhere and to anyone; changing the profile pictures allow people to show support to unfortunate victims of the attacks. The change in profile pictures unite people from all around the world against terrorism and ISIS. Many countries, particularly France’s allies, immediately aided France in responding to the attacks. According to the news publisher, Breaking News, many governments gathered security and defense ministers in order to improve security. Many global leaders from around the world met in G20,a meeting of twenty foreign leaders, to discuss international economic cooperation. In addition, they determined how they would respond to the incident. Neighboring countries, like Belgium, increased border patrol security checks between France and itself, in order to uncover other potential disguised ISIS members. Germany offered weapons and reinforcements to France in order to attack ISIS. Public opinion, facilitated through filtered profile pictures, against the attacks allowed governments to take action against the ISIS organization.
“Europe stood united in the fight against terrorism and would track down the networks and all who contributed to these evil acts and bring them to justice,” said European Parliament president Martin Schulz.
Many people argue that the filtered French flag profile pictures were too centralized on France. They argued that similar issues around the world currently exist including: Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, and Nigeria, but have not gained as much acknowledgment as the Paris attacks. However, location played a key factor in differentiating the Beirut and Paris attacks. The attacks in Paris were at locations where people spend leisure time, thereby being most vulnerable; it was an area in which people could feel safe. ISIS intended to demoralize people in France by attacking seemingly safe places, such as the restaurants and theater, where anyone could have been a potential target. In other words, no one was safe, whoever was at the locations at the same time as the attacker came in harm’s way. The attacks wasn’t aimed towards the French government. Rather, it was focused on innocent civilians. However, France was just the unlucky candidate for the ISIS attacks. Thus, using the filtered profile pictures to represent the deceased in the Paris attacks, brought people throughout the world to aim their concerns towards terrorism,
Responses to the attacks in France were proper since they reciprocated France’s aid after the 9/11 attacks and brought many individuals against terrorism. With the help of people from all around the world, terrorism can end once and for all. Assistance and collaboration from other governments could finally put an end to the issue, as well as the elimination of ISIS organization.
