Facebook is celebrating with the LGBT community and people who support equality rights for all over the Supreme Court's landmark decision outlawing all state bans on gay and lesbian marriages.
Many people in support of the cause have updated their profile pictures to a rainbow flag, the symbol for the LGBT community, but Facebook is rolling out a new tool that makes the entire process of changing profile pictures much easier.
The social network's chief and founder Mark Zuckerberg himself, who changed his own profile picture in celebration of the newfound right for gays and lesbians to marry, announced the new tool on his own Facebook page. This tool allows users to easily superimpose a rainbow filter over their profile pictures without having to learn how to use Photoshop to do so.
Facebook users who want to show their pride via Facebook can go to the Celebrate Pride page while logged in to their Facebook accounts. Here, they will be able to see a preview of their profile pictures superimposed with a semi-transparent rainbow filter. They will also be given the option to edit the description on their profile pictures, afterwards they can easily click or tap on the "Use as Profile Picture" button. This will immediately change their profile picture to their new Celebrate Pride image.
"Our country was founded on the promise that all people are created equal, and today we took another step towards achieving that promise," says Zuckerberg. "I'm so happy for all of my friends and everyone in our community who can finally celebrate their love and be recognized as equal couples under the law. We still have much more to do to achieve equality for everyone in our community, but we are moving in the right direction."
Facebook says that among its U.S. users, 6 million people have identified themselves as part of the LGBT community. Earlier this year, Facebook allowed its users to self-identify with the gender of their choice by adding 56 other options, including Gender Fluid, Intersex, Neutrois, Transmasculine and Two-Spirit.
However, Facebook has not always been very supportive of the LGBT community. In 2014, Facebook came under fire after it blocked members of the drag community in San Francisco from accessing their accounts, saying they should use their legal names and not their drag names to be able to use Facebook. The social networking site has since apologized and turned its policy, allowing the drag queens to use their stage names for their Facebook profiles.
