As many of you are aware, on Friday, November 13th, terrorist attacks broke out. What also broke out, was social media, as people not only expressed their condolences and prayers to France, but united over hashtags such as #prayforparis, #prayforiraq, #prayfortheworld, and so on. During this dark day, a community on social media was formed. However, beyond this, what I really want to write about, is the hashtag, #porteouverte.

This is the first time in my 4 years of being a business student have I seen a hashtag change the way I see social media. The idea behind #porteouverte was for people in Paris to welcome those on the streets that their homes were open for shelter and protection. People without shelter would be able to look up #porteouverte to connect with those who were willing to lend a helping hand. In theory, this hashtag would work wonderfully and I fully understand it comes from a good place. However, the hashtag became so popular that people who weren’t even in Paris were using it to spread awareness. Unfortunately, because so many people were trying to spread the word (to the point where it was trending on twitter and facebook), the hashtag was not being used for what it was really meant for, and it watered down the true #porteouverte hashtags that were meant to help.

To me, this is a prime example of the strong influence social media has. Once things become viral, it really becomes out of your control. This event has caused me to think about how social media will evolve in the future to become a tool to connect those in need. Social media is now much more than just updating everyone on what you’re eating or doing. It’s become an essential part of human life and how we communicate with each other. Even with Facebook, during the attacks, people from Paris can mark themselves as “safe” in order to share with their family and friends that they were unharmed. Personally, I had a couple of friends on exchange in Paris, and it was such a relief to know that they were OK—all of this from one update on Facebook.  It will be interesting to see how social media will integrate in our health and protection systems in Canada and beyond during major crises. However, in the case of what happened with the hashtag, #porteouvert, there will need to be a perfect balance for how things go viral and which audience is using the right hashtags.