How Social Media Platforms Celebrated International Women’s Day

On the 8th of March, people from all across the world celebrated International Women’s Day, from citizens holding marches and protests across the world to brands flipping their logos and introducing limited edition products to honor the occasion. Let’s take a look at how our favorite social media platforms have taken to commemorate the movement for women’s rights.

Facebook

The social media giant introduced the Credit Her campaign to commemorate women for their various contributions across time. The video encourages people to give credit to various women for their accomplishments because they were not able to receive credit for what they had done the first time.

Facebook also allowed people to express their support for the advancement of women’s rights through cards, photo frames and themed backgrounds for text posts.

Finally, Facebook also launched Community Finder for its #SheMeansBusiness initiative. Community Finder is a function that helps women entrepreneurs who want to develop their businesses “connect with each other and share questions, advice and resources”.

Twitter

On Twitter, users can make use of a number of hashtags, such us #InternationalWomensDay, #IWD2018, #SheInspiresMe and #HereWeAre to express their support for the movement. Twitter itself propelled the #HereWeAre campaign forward by introducing an advertisement during the Oscars as part of a call for female empowerment.

We stand with women around the world to make their voices heard and their presence known. To bring them front and center, today and every day. Join us as we say #HereWeAre pic.twitter.com/cN2Ik6bZU8

— Twitter (@Twitter) March 4, 2018

Some users have cried foul over Twitter’s supposed expression of support, arguing that Twitter ought to be spending the money used for the ad more wisely–on putting in more security measures  as well as checks and balances to ensure that women who speak their mind on the platform are not derided for doing so.

As for user participation on the platform, according to Twitter, teenagers (aged 13-17) tweeted more about International Women’s Day this year than any other age group.

In addition, those located in the United States spoke about the event far more than users from any other part of the world.

Snapchat

Snapchat provided its users with 3 new lenses for International Women’s Day, allowing them to take selfies as historically celebrated women Frida Kahlo, Rosa Parks and Marie Curie.

While the celebration of these women has been lauded, Snapchat is also being lambasted for the effects created by their filters. Users have complained that the Frida Kahlo lens lightens skin color while the Marie Curie lens creates a smoky eyeshadow effect while also lengthening eyelashes. Such effects entrench certain societal perceptions of beauty and appear to work against the efforts of those who seek to empower women.

This goes to show that support for social justice causes, although much welcomed if done well, can also backfire if enough care is not put into creating something that resonates with one’s users.