Yahoo Lifestyle 26 Million People Supported America's Gay Marriage Ruling
If, like us, you were elated to hear that gay marriage is now legal in the USA, you'll be even happier to note how much the rest of the world appreciated the news.
Over the weekend, 26 million people around the globe added a rainbow filter to their Facebook profile photo in celebration of America's decision - to put that into perspective, that's the equivalent of the entire population of Australia.
Those pictures received more than half a billion likes and comments, totalling more than 565 million interactions. Of those numbers, we can only conclude that it's time more countries around the world embraced gay marriage.
GALLERY: Hollywood reacts to America's gay marriage ruling.
Originally created by two interns (who we imagine must be in the midst of asking for a promotion), the rainbow pride filter was released due to internal demand at Facebook, and was not designed as a way of garnering information, as the social network site has been accused, but as a celebratory tool.
"This was not an experiment or test, but rather something that enables people to show their support of the LGBTQ community on Facebook," a Facebook spokesperson told Gizmodo.com. "We aren't going to use this as a way to target ads and the point of this tool is not to get information about people."
While the simple act of changing a profile photo won't necessarily change people's minds about an issue, it can certainly help them think about their own opinion and where it fits in relation to their friends.
According to Facebook data scientists, social influence is the number one deciding factor when it comes to change, with users more likely to adopt the rainbow profile photo if they saw multiple friends doing so.
Hollywood reacts to America's gay marriage ruling
