Tech Giants, Facebook,Instagram, and Twitter reacts to George Floyd Protest

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Arbaz Sayed

Jun 3, 2020 — 3 min read

Recently a horrific incident took place in Minneapolis which led to massive protests by citizens of the USA. The incident happened On May 25, Minneapolis resident George Floyd was pinned face down on the ground in handcuffs, by a white police officer who pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes.

George Floyd, a 46 year old black man, was suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill. Floyd was unresponsive when paramedics arrived, and he was declared dead later.‌‌This led to a massive protest in the USA which left protesters vandalizing vehicles and was set on fire.‌‌To present solidarity and in honor of George Floyd, most of the brands stood up against racism. They have shown their support to the protests by primarily using the medium of social media to align themselves.

Twitter

Major tech giants have also came forward to provide solidarity to George Floyd and stand up against racism. Twitter has officially revised its logo to black and added the hashtag "black lives matter" to its bio, this comes after when twitter added a warning label on tweets posted by President Donald Trump and the white house threatening to shoot protesters in Minnesota.

Facebook

Following this Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube also stepped in, Facebook has also changed its logo to black, but Facebook CEO faced massive criticism from the citizens of the USA as well as from its employees for over his refusal to act on President Donald Trump’s incendiary tweets about protests.

Unlike Twitter Facebook has not appended any warning label to posts by President Donald Trump that threatened "looting" in Minneapolis would lead to "shooting." Zuckerberg has said his company "read it as a warning about state action, and we think people need to know if the government is planning to deploy force".

Also Read: Facebook Launches Yet Another Application, CatchUp

Instagram

Speaking about Instagram, Instagram has also updated its cover image and display picture to black. The cover image says, '#ShareBlackStories.

WhatsApp a famous messaging platform owned by Facebook has also dyed its logo to black, to present solidarity to George Floyd, which pleasantly surprised fans of the instant messaging application.

Whatsapp changed their logo to honor black lives matter movement_Startuptalky

‌YouTube

YouTube has committed $1 million “in support of efforts to address a social injustice,” with CEO Susan Wojcicki noting on Twitter alongside the donation announcement that, “We stand together.” YouTube also changed the shade of its typically red logo to black on all of its social media platforms as a sign of solidarity.

These are times when we realize the power of social media, with the help of social media this incident came into light. We all are humans we all are same, We have end racism and hate towards a particular community because of#blacklivesmatter.

Americans are not new to racism, racism has been carried out in America from an early age. there are several occurrences reported of racism by the cops towards white and black, but many leave unattended this was one such incident which spread like a wildfire, and the citizens of America came forward to fight against racism.