Alright, so I wanted to update this because it's fairly interesting (to me at least—and it seems to some of you too.) In the past couple days I've seen this trend expand and explode: The backlash has been heavier than I expected, by a lot. So much that Facebook actually had to make a statement on why they turned on safety check for Paris but no where else. I think we will see a lot more backlash and analysis of people, the media (especially in the west), etc. Ugh. - I wasn't entirely surprised by France's bombing retaliation and I understand it, but don't necessarily think it's going to make anything any better. Furthermore, the ongoing shitstorm of arrests, the attackers' names coming out, etc. has kept the newsrooms busy. I see tons of these stories on my RSS feeds and twitter but not as much on my Facebook. My facebook seems generally obsessed with opinion pieces or analysis pieces and "why aren't you talking about XYZ" pieces. Cue outrage of the outrage:- "Remember that this is happening everywhere" ... "Beirut" ... "Pray for everyone not just Paris" ... and the first sign of what I take as "too cool for the standard 'my thoughts/prayers are with those in Paris' messages"
I have noticed that pretty much all of this "what about Beirut?" concern trolling has been carried out by conservatives who avoid participating in these trends of displaying support. They are clearly using this as an opportunity to score political points against what they see as a liberal hegemony in the media.
I'm seeing it on my liberal, young adult Facebook feed by arts students and the like and on sites like HuffPo. I don't know if it's strictly conservatives who are pushing it.
That's exactly where I'm seeing it too...granted that group contains 80% of my Facebook feed. It's still going on too, still noticing people posting articles and all that, but now things are starting to shift back towards Black Lives Matter and internal social issues, as it has been for the past lot of months.