By now, you've seen them on Facebook and other social media: tools that allow users to superimpose flags over their profile photos. When Tom Galle, Moises Sanabria (Art404) and Slava Balasanov (4Real) saw that the French flag was the only option for expressing solidarity in the wake of global terror, they found it problematic. So, they created a tool, All Flags Profile Photo Converter, that allows users to superimpose the flags of all the countries attacked by ISIS onto profile pictures.
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It's as simple as uploading a profile photo.
Galle tells The Creators Project that the French flag image could be seen as a marketing or image campaign to support or help establish the image of a “positive” company—Facebook in this case—with values. He believes that Facebook offers the tool to people who are at their most emotional vulnerable and receptive moment, “making every French flag profile pic a mini-ad for Facebook as a company.”“A second problem is that over 20 countries are hit by ISIS on a regular basis, and none of these got tools to express their emotions or condolences, or to flag that they are safe,” Galle adds. “If they are as ‘good’ as they claim to be, then why did they forget all these countries? Among other reasons, perhaps there’s less marketing opportunity there. I guess you don’t see Coca-Cola run as [many] marketing campaigns in those countries either. A third problem I think is, in times when unification, humanity and solidarity seem to be most needed, is one country's national flag really the best symbol to universally unify?”
Courtesy the artists
But could a tool like this be perceived by some as just as offensive as picking one victim country’s flag over another? Galle doesn’t believe that this is the case, and it’s certainly not he nor his fellow artists’ intention. Galle emphasizes that they are not trying to judge anyone that uses Facebook’s tool. The goal is to instead criticize Facebook.
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