In the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks on Friday, which killed 129 people, many people took to social media to change their profile pictures to a Facebook-created overlay of the French flag.
But Charlotte Farhan, editor of the online magazine Art Saves Lives International, wrote an impassioned status saying that even though she is French and from Paris, she will not be updating her Facebook profile picture with the French flag — and her post is now going viral.
"[I]f I did this for only Paris this would be wrong," she wrote on Saturday. "If I did this for every attack on the world, I would have to change my profile everyday several times a day."
"My heart is with the world, no borders, no hierarchy, I hold every human's life with value who is attacked by extremist beliefs whether they are based on religion, prejudice or profit!" she went on. "Don't be part of the 'us and them' mentality which the war mongers want you to do!"
Her post now has over 89,000 shares and 135,000 likes and counting. Many commenters are thanking her for speaking out about her decision.
"I want to post something to that effect, but you worded it precisely," one follower wrote.
Some people, however, are taking issue with Farhan's post after feeling judged or criticized for their decision to use the Facebook filter. Though no examples appear on Farhan's profile, since it appears she is deleting the negative comments, Farhan did take the time to respond to her critics in another status.
"If you took what I said via the status of mine which went viral yesterday, as a criticism, then you missed my point completely," Farhan said. "I have no issue with those using the flag as their profile picture, I just explained why I as a FRENCH person did not."
Farhan isn't the first to speak out against the French-flag Facebook filter. Even while news feeds around the world were saturated with the overlay, some people on Twitter wanted to know why they couldn't enable a Beirut color option after a double suicide attack took place in the Lebanese capital on Thursday.
—Kristi Callahan (@KristiCallahan) November 15, 2015
—Grizzly Jackson (@TheDFWGod) November 15, 2015
—Dαlιlα ❀ (@IsakiDalila) November 14, 2015
—Andy قلبي (@soukici) November 14, 2015
Popsugar also saw people requesting a Kenyan flag after 150 people died when a gunman stormed a university in April and a Syrian flag for the Syrian Civil War, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
After receiving criticism for enabling a Safety Check for Paris and not for Beirut, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained in a Facebook post that the social-media site would be covering "human disasters" moving forward. He did not comment on the Facebook flag filter.
"Many people have rightfully asked why we turned on Safety Check for Paris but not for bombings in Beirut and other places," Zuckerberg wrote. "Until yesterday, our policy was only to activate Safety Check for natural disasters. We just changed this and now plan to activate Safety Check for more human disasters going forward as well."
[h/t The Mirror]
