Yesterday you may have noticed that your Facebook news feed was very red, and that there were a bunch of equals signs everywhere. This was the result of the Supreme Court beginning to hear arguments on California’s Prop 8 same-sex marriage ban. All of the red equals signs were simply marriage equality supporters, well, showing their support.
The red equals sign was a play on the standard blue and yellow equals sign logo for the Human Rights Campaign.
Today, Facebook has some quick numbers on the top-buzzing terms over the last day, and it looks like equality has won out.
According to Facebook’s Talk Meter, which looks at buzz around specific events, the term “Equality” was the most-used term surrounding the gay marriage debate. Facebook says its use was up 5,000% on Tuesday.
Also:
The top age group talking about the landmark cases yesterday, in advance of oral arguments, was the 35-44 range followed by 25-34 and 45-54.
Geographically speaking, people in Washington, D.C. were buzzing the most in anticipation of the hearings, followed by users in Utah, Oklahoma, Arkansas, California, Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado.
Here’s Facebook’s full list of the top ten terms buzzing on the network on Tuesday.
- Equality
- DOMA
- Supreme Court
- Perry
- Kennedy
- Prop 8
- Kagan
- SCOTUS
- Scalia
- Defense of Marriage
Don’t expect the Facebook buzz for same-sex-related and Supreme Court-related topics to die down today. Tuesday, the court heard arguments on California’s Prop 8. But today, the court will begin to hear arguments on the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which barred many federal agencies from recognizing same-sex marriage (in terms of some benefits and such). Many high-profile tech companies and other American businesses (including Facebook) have filed a amicus brief arguing that DOMA is simply bad for business.