After Lebanese took to social media to voice their solidarity with Paris while questioning why little attention had been paid to the bombing in Beirut – which occurred one day before the attacks in France – the world started to notice.
Google added a black ribbon icon on its Lebanon homepage, expressing its solidarity with Beirut. International media outlets around the world began to take notice of the blaring lack of attention given to the Beirut attacks as well.
Facebook, which had become one of the main targets of Lebanese questioning, issued a statement as to why it had added the "safety check" feature for Paris and not other tragedies. Mark Zuckerburg, the founder and CEO at Facebook, explained that the feature had only been used for natural disasters before the Paris attacks. Going forward it will also be used for other human disasters around the world.
However, no clarification was made as to why users were given the option to change their profile image to show solidarity with France but not Lebanon, Iraq or any other country who had recently suffered an ISIS attack. Many social media users began manually changing their profile picture to include a Lebanese flag in solidarity with Beirut, with some combining the French and Lebanese flags.
While Egypt joined the world in expressing solidarity with Paris on Saturday evening by lighting up the pyramids in the colors of the French flag, on Sunday night it took a more inclusive approach. Flags of Egypt, France, Lebanon and Russia were all included in the light display, expressing solidarity between itself and three other nations recently affected by ISIS attacks.
However, with France still the center of global attention, will people actually learn to notice suffering beyond the Western world?