Facebook Solidarity: Company Shows ‘Black Lives Matter’ Support In Big Way, Google Too
Facebook and Google have called for racial justice in the United States and around the world, showing “Black Lives Matter” solidarity.
Facebook’s solidarity in the “Black Lives Matter” movement showed itself in a big way at the company’s headquarters.
But, before we get into that, Mark Zuckerberg explains why.
On Thursday, July 7, Facebook’s owner, Zuckerberg, took to social media to make a statement, and it was a profound one.
He recalled the recent shooting of Philando Castile — even discussing his heartbreak from seeing Diamond Reynolds’ Facebook Live post.
If you’d like to read Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook post in its entirety, it’s located below.
Each letter is composed of several names, whether by first name or last name.
And, as you know, all victims were reportedly unarmed, with the exception of Philando Castile. According to Diamond Reynolds’ testimony, Philando was licensed to carry a concealed weapon. The Inquisitr previously reported on that story.
You can see a closeup of “Black Lives Matter” solidarity in the photo below.
In the past, you’ve seen the company show support for terrorist attacks around the world. And now, with the recent shootings, people are beginning to see the true meaning behind the phrase, “black lives matter.”
Via Facebook, there are many video examples of police officers giving non-black U.S. citizens ample chances to correct their wrongs or obey the officers’ commands. Some citizens even fight back adamantly. Yet, these officers still find a way to apprehend these non-black violators without resorting to fatal methods. And, it’s caught on Facebook video.
However, within seconds, officers — neglecting the same sense of compassion — shot down Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and many others, within seconds.
Via Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page, people have been pouring comments onto his post after gaining a better understanding of “Black Lives Matter”s meaning.
One commentator on the Facebook owner’s post, Richard Lividas, mentioned that he had always been one of the people chanting “All Lives Matter” whenever he would hear or see the aforementioned movement. But now, Lividas says that he understands.
Is Facebook’s solidarity a response to long-time critics who proclaimed that Silicon Valley companies “don’t care about black people”?
“Tech companies are no stranger to using media, money, and smarts to raise the stakes on issues it cares about,” says Medium‘s Justin Edmund.
This is true.
As you may have read some months ago, Facebook was under fire for allegedly tampering with trending topics, as well as blocking topics.
If you didn’t hear about it, in May, various former Facebook staff members came forth with confessions regarding the trending topics section of the site.
Gizmodo reported as follows regarding Facebook’s controversy.
“Several former Facebook ‘news curators’, as they were known internally…told Gizmodo that they were instructed to artificially ‘inject’ selected stories into the trending news module, even if they weren’t popular enough to warrant inclusion — or in some cases weren’t trending at all.”
In the Inquisitr‘s report on Philando Castile, it mentioned that his girlfriend recorded the shooting incident via Facebook live stream. However, just hours afterwards, her Facebook profile had been deactivated — rendering her video evidence disabled as well.
However, according to Diamond Reynolds, she said that police officers confiscated her phone as evidence and also took over her Facebook profile. The Inquisitr also covered this portion of her story.
Nevertheless, whatever the case, Facebook has stepped up its game in a great show of solidarity.
Actually, Fusion mentions that this isn’t the first time that Mark Zuckerberg has spoken in solidarity for “Black Lives Matter.” The source says that he has corrected other staffers on multiple occasions about changing the phrase to “All Lives Matter,” saying that it’s insensitive to the issues the black communities undergoes.
However, they’re not the only Silicon Valley company to show such solidarity. Google also acknowledged the injustices and issued condolences to the Sterling and Castile families.
#AltonSterling and #PhilandoCastile’s lives mattered. Black lives matter. We need racial justice now. pic.twitter.com/mXTC0zRfqJ
— Google (@Google) July 7, 2016
While this is assuredly progress, there’s still a long way to go to curing the disease that is racial injustice.
What are your thoughts regarding Facebook and Google’s solidarity methods? How about you? Do you stand in solidarity with the meaning behind “Black Lives Matter”? Feel free to share your comments below.
[Photo by Scott Olsen/Sean Gallup/Getty Images]
