Facebook mourns Virginia Tech

The horrible Virginia Tech happenings of the 16th April, have lead to an incredible flux of emotion and solidarity from people all around the globe. On social networking sites like Facebook, known for its huge Student community, members have demonstrated their respect and sympathy by creating and joining groups to honour those that passed away.

More than 500 groups have been formed in the 24 hours following the massacre offering support and remembrance, seeing a huge support and involvement.

“A tribute to those who passed at the Virginia Tech Shooting” was joined by more than 200,000 people in less than 48 hours, at a pace of thousands every hour, leaving more than 20,000 wall posts.

“A tribute from Canadians to Virginia tech”, “A tribute from Muslim students to those that passed away at VT”, “UK loves Va Tech” . . . to name a few.

Many VT students managed to communicate with their families and loved ones via the website’s wall, or discussion forum, and a student from another American College founded a “Pick a Hokie” grouping encouraging members to pick a random VT student out of the directory and to send that person a message of condolence. The group had almost 600 members as of Tuesday the 17th.

Most users also demonstrated their mourning by replacing their profile picture with a Black Ribbon and the VT emblem