How To Show Your Support For Istanbul On Facebook

On Tuesday, explosions rocked Istanbul Atatürk Airport in Turkey in what appeared to be a terrorist attack. At least 31 people were killed and more than a hundred others injured, according to reports from The New York Times several hours after the attack. News of the attack spread quickly on social media, where those in Turkey and around the world shared messages of support, including "Pray for Istanbul" images and personal stories. Whether you have a personal story to share or not, you can offer condolences by changing your Facebook profile photo to support Istanbul.

On Tuesday night in the U.S., there were still several unanswered questions about the day's attack on the other side of the world. The attack was reportedly carried out by suicide bombers, although no organization had taken responsibility for the violence. Despite the questions that remained, the grieving and recovery process began right away, as social media users rushed to post about the attack, sharing information, images, and experiences with one another and the public.

In the wake of such tragedies, Facebook often offers users a temporary filter to add to their profile photo to demonstrate their support for the affected community. For instance, after last year's violent attacks in Paris, Facebook gave users the option to overlay their profile photos with a transparent French flag. The filter creates a new version of your profile photo, which will remain your chosen profile photo until you manually change it.

This time around, you may want to add the Turkish flag to your profile photo. Unfortunately, as of Tuesday night on the eastern coast of the U.S., Facebook had not made public the option to use a Turkish flag filter. Even without the Facebook-generated filter, though, you can still update your social media profiles to support Istanbul.

If you'd like to get creative, you could create your own makeshift filter with the Turkish flag. Using a photo editing app, you can overlay a photo with an image of the flag and then adjust the flag image to be transparent. In lieu of a filtered image, many supporters simply shared images of the Turkish flag — whether in photograph or artistic rendering form — with the hashtag #PrayforTurkey or #PrayforIstanbul. Others, particularly those who had traveled to Istanbul previously, shared photos of their experiences with the city.

News of the attack in Istanbul will likely fill headlines and social media news feeds for several days as more information becomes available and more stories from the location of the violence come to light. Stay tuned for a Facebook photo filter. In the meantime, though, stay up-to-date on the news and share your support for those in Istanbul and for peace around the world with a sympathetic message of your own creation.