Berlin mourns after Paris attacks. Demotix/Christina Palitzsch. All rights reserved. As news began to roll in of the horror unfolding on the streets of Paris on Friday night, it was Facebook where I went to get timely updates, to react with friends and indeed, to make sure that someone I knew who was visiting Paris at the time, was safe.
Facebook once again, and the online community in general became the eyes through which I could witness the events unfolding.Yet through watching my online community come together in grief, we learned uncomfortable things about Facebook's role in our mourning. What control does Facebook have over our experience of tragedy?
As often is the case in our modern world, it was online where friends could share with one another, to express our anger, sorrow, solidarity and fear as one community. With messages of prayer, thought, wishes and solidarity, we could express something to the online community that without technology in a previous generation may have remained much more restrained in a church, home or other private setting.
