Facebook’s Gay Marriage Support Map Looks Exactly How You’d Expect It to Look

As you may remember, Facebook was painted red on Tuesday as marriage equality supporters changed their profile pictures to a red and pink equals sign to show their support of the cause. The image was ...
Facebook’s Gay Marriage Support Map Looks Exactly How You’d Expect It to Look
Written by Josh Wolford
  • As you may remember, Facebook was painted red on Tuesday as marriage equality supporters changed their profile pictures to a red and pink equals sign to show their support of the cause.

    The image was shared by the Human Rights Campaign’s Facebook page, who repurposed their normal blue and yellow logo to show support for same-sex marriage as the U.S. Supreme Court began to hear arguments in two relevant cases.

    Facebook’s data science team has analyzed the campaign, and has provided us with a neat little map of all the counties in the U.S. The redder the county, the more profile pic changes its Facebook users made on that day.

    Look, we’re not saying that there are no marriage equality supporters in the south, or that everyone in California or Michigan supports same-sex marriage. We’re just saying that the look of this map leaves nobody around here surprised.

    Facebook notes a not all that curious trend. Apparently, many of the top 25 counties in the country that showed the most love for HRC’s marriage equality campaign house colleges – Orange (University of North Carolina), Durham (Duke University), Monroe (Indiana University), Johnson (University of Iowa), Athens (Ohio University), Dane (University of Wisconsin), Boulder (University of Colorado), and Travis (University of Texas at Austin).

    Apart from that, San Francisco County, San Mateo County, and Washington, D.C. also ranked high on the list for changed profile pics.

    Facebook’s data team has some more interesting insights about HRC’s campaign. Here’s a couple:

    • 120% more people across the network changed their profile picture on Tuesday compared to the previous Tuesday.
    • Those closest to the age of 30 were the most likely users to update their profile picture.
    • Females were slightly more likely (2.3%) to change their profile pic.

    Facebook closes their study with this:

    “For a long time, when people stood up for a cause and weren’t all physically standing shoulder to shoulder, the size of their impact wasn’t immediately apparent. But today, we can see the spread of an idea online in greater detail than ever before. That’s data well worth finding.”

    Did you change you profile picture on Tuesday?

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