Popular social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have introduced new features in celebration of Pride month. Pride month is a celebration of the LGBTQ+ community that takes place in June every year.
If you’re wanting to take part in the Pride celebrations, you can show support using Frames over profile photos. Facebook is allowing users to change their profile photos temporarily with rainbow frames. To apply frames to your profile visit the Profile Frame Gallery and search fbpride. You can then reposition and customise your image to how you want. When a friend sees that you have added a frame they are automatically given the option to add one too.
Facebook are also adding new backgrounds for status updates featuring the rainbow flag along with stickers and filters in the Facebook camera section. AR is beginning to be introduced on the messaging side of Facebook, Pride effects have showcased the new technology that Facebook is using. The Pride features were used a lot in the past two years so it is expected that the support for the community will again be thriving across Facebook this year.
On Twitter, a rainbow heart emoji is triggered when #Pride2018, #LoveisLove, #Pride and #LoveWins is used. Twitter use this feature quite often to demonstrate celebration or show something going on in pop culture.
Instagram, owned by Facebook, has also introduced various celebratory features. Like Facebook, the app has an option for a rainbow background for typed stories. When going live on Instagram each time the heart is pressed it shows a different colour of the rainbow and when held the screen is covered with rainbow hearts. Instagram has also worked in partnership with GLAAD, a nonprofit organization that works against discrimination towards the LGBTQ+ community in the media. GLAAD assists Instagram to recognise hashtags like #PRIDE and #LGBT etc. The hashtags appear in rainbow and also are monitored.
Over the last couple of years there has been significant progress for the LGBTQ+ community but there is still a long way to go. Pride month is a celebration of how far the community has come but also an event to push further forwards in search of equality, understanding and worldwide acceptance. Pride is a time that enables people who identify as LGBTQ+ to feel safe and loved.
Show your support by using these features on your social media profiles.