Tuesday’s terrorism attacks in Brussels were met almost immediately with outpourings of emotion and displays of solidarity online.
The word “Brussels” in various languages dominated Twitter’s list of top worldwide trends. Under the French word for the city – Bruxelles – the most widely shared image was one drawn by Plantu, a cartoonist for the French newspaper Le Monde. It explicitly linked the November attacks in Paris to Tuesday’s bombings:
Plantu also drew one of the most widely shared images after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January 2015.
“Pray for Belgium”, “Pray for Brussels” and “Je Suis Bruxelles” were among the most popular Twitter slogans, all used tens of thousands of times in the hours after the attacks. A popular set of memes used adaptations of the famous Belgian cartoon character Tintin and many people posted images incorporating the black, yellow and red of the Belgian flag:
