Paris attacks: the many faces of social media’s response to terror

On Friday night a series of coordinated terror attacks across Paris resulted in the deaths of more than 150 people. The majority of those deaths were at an Eagles of Death Metal concert at the city’s Bataclan venue. Given the scale of the attacks, it should hardly be surprising that they attracted serious attention on social media. The sentiments expressed were however far from uniform.

Many simply expressed sympathy with the people of Paris:

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Others used the opportunity to remind people about what others around the world go through on a daily basis:

And that far from being to blame for the attacks, the refugees making their way across Europe were actually trying to get away from the kind of people who commit such acts:

Many of those tweets were in reaction to those suggesting that Europe had brought this on itself by accepting refugees in the first place:

Donald Trump appeared to step into the fray, but while this tweet — quickly shut down by the French ambassador to America — seems like something Trump would say, it turned out to not actually be related to this particular event:

Trump’s actual tweets, while still inflammatory, were a little more measured:


Facebook meanwhile showed that it continues to be powerful tool for keeping people connected during disasters by activating its Safety Check tool.

“My thoughts are with everyone in Paris tonight,” said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in a post announcing the activation of the tool. “Violence like this has no place in any city or country in the world”.

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