Terrorism Has No Religion" Trends On Twitter After Paris Attacks

After a series of terrorist attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 that reportedly killed over 100 people, French citizens and citizens of the world alike are in a state of disarray and sadness. The terrorist acts, which police say are likely linked, include 100 hostages being held in Bataclan concert venue, an open-fire shooting at a Paris restaurant, and what could have been up to five explosions near a football stadium in Paris. While details of the incidents are still emerging, those following the events taking place Friday have taken to Twitter to post news updates, share prayers and support, and even offer up their homes as a safe place for those in need of refuge from the possibly dangerous Paris streets.

Update: French police confirmed a total of six attacks in Paris, including two suicide attacks and one bombing near the Stade de France, as well as attacks at the Bataclan concert hall and a restaurant. French news outlets reported that police launched an assault on the Bataclan concert hall, where gunmen were holding 100 hostages. According to The Guardian, eight attackers are dead, several of whom died after detonating suicide belts. Authorities have reported that the number of fatalities has reached at least 120.ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks; President Hollande agrees it was the terror group.

Earlier: While "Paris" has been trending on the social media platform since the terrorist attacks were first reported, other hashtags have filtered in and out, such as "#PorteOuverte" — an indicator of a household willing to shelter those who need a safe place, and "Rob Lowe" was also trending for his possibly insensitive tweets regarding the incident.

And now, "Terrorism Has No Religion" is making the rounds, with those who have Paris in their thoughts asking speculators not to blame any religion as a whole for these attacks. Some of the tweets, aimed at promoting cultural understanding and mutual support, read:

Hassan Rouhani brands Paris attacks 'crimes against humanity'

TEHRAN: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani strongly condemned the deadly attacks in Paris, branding them "crimes against humanity" in a message to his French counterpart Francois Hollande, the official media said. "In the name of the Iranian people, who have themselves been victims of terrorism, I strongly condemn these crimes against humanity and offer my condolences to the grieving French people and government," Rouhani wrote, according Irna news agency.

Customer Service:How brands are tapping Facebook Messenger

A growing number of brands are teaming up with Facebook Messenger after realizing its potential as a communication channel for offering customer service and building personal relationships with mobile users. The Businesses on Messenger platform enables marketers to bring service conversations to social media, a facet of mobile with which many consumers are familiar. Brands including Hyatt have joined forces with customer service solution Conversocial to roll out these initiatives on Messenger, which may include real-time chat and transaction receipts. “We have launched this service today with Hyatt, which is the first of our customers to go live with Facebook Messenger for customer care,” said Paul Johns, chief marketing officer of Conversocial, New York. “Now that our Facebook Messenger service is available we fully anticipate most of our customers will begin to adopt.“Social is moving – from being about public displays of dissatisfaction to being a convenient mobile channel with a focus on service resolution.” Promoting social care Conversocial has recently integrated a real-time chat experience into the Messenger app, a service that allows brands and their customers to have two-way talks regarding issues or inquiries. As the popularity of Facebook’s standalone app enjoyed a 40 percent growth spurt from 2014 to 2015, brands can certainly find a large portion of their audience on this channel. More than 700 million people currently use Messenger each month. Businesses must now consider Facebook as a primary customer service channel, due to the staggering amount of users it boasts. It can also help streamline requests for employees, especially if most of the customer traffic gets directed to social media. However, marketers must commit to using social media, and consequently train all associates to be ready to respond to any requests that come in. There are also several best practices to leveraging the Businesses on Messenger platform of which brands should be aware. “Make sure you are publicizing that social customer care is available,” Mr. Johns said. “Make it clear on your Web site, Facebook page, etc. “Have a focus on near-immediate acknowledgment of the inbound message,” he said. “Focus on resolving whatever issues you can in the channel – do not divert customers to another channel. “Do not be tempted to script or auto-bot the dialogue. Keep the conversations as human as possible. This is an opportunity for brands to have real conversations.” Hyatt’s customer-first approach Hospitality marketer Hyatt implemented the Conversocial solution into its global control room efforts this past summer. This enables several customer contact centers to respond to guests’ inquiries and maximize their positive travel experiences via Facebook. As more hotel brands roll out mobile concierge platforms, consumers increasingly expect to interact with them for all requests via their smartphones, making this an ideal move for Hyatt. Facebook has recently updated its Pages feature to aid businesses in bolstering their mobile presence and sales via more prominent call-to-action buttons, improved layout and new sections for showcasing relevant information to users (see story). If the Businesses in Messenger platform integrates with this layout, the social network may see an influx of brand-consumer interaction in the near future. “What I can say is that ‘in the moment’ service is a critical component of the Hyatt guest experience,” Mr. Johns said. “It allows guests to have a positive experience as they are engaging with Hyatt on mobile and throughout their customer journey. “Hyatt is leading the way here, offering service and embracing channels such as Facebook Messenger as well as other social channels such as Instagram with geotagging. My sense is that Hyatt sees the value in their guests very much being an extension of its brand and a clear way to differentiate from other hotel businesses.”

Pinterest And Facebook announced a new visual search feature

Pinterest is taking big data to another level. The social network has just announced a new visual search feature: a search tool that will allow users to select just a portion of an image, and then look for other similar images within the site. In collaboration with members of the Berkeley Vision and Learning Center, Pinterest uses deep machine learning to learn image features based on their richly annotated dataset of billions of Pins. Those features are then used to create a similarity score between any two images. The result is that if you see a lamp you love in a pin of a living room, you can select the lamp, and search for other similar lamps — as well as where to buy them. Facebook is doing more with photos, too. In a separate announcement, Facebook has added a new feature to its Messenger app that will look at your phone’s camera roll for any photos you may have snapped of your Facebook friends, and then prompt you to share them with those friends. Facebook says it is solving a problem of the digital age: that you may have dozens of photos of friends on your phone that you never get around to sharing. Facebook’s powerful facial recognition algorithm hopes to make that a problem of the past by recognizing your friends and prompting you to share the photos. Users can opt out of facial recognition, and users must opt in to the new Photo Magic feature to get notifications about images they may want to share. But Facebook isn’t the only one putting the new algorithms to work. A recent update to the Photos app included with the Mac OS offers a smart album called “selfies” that — you guessed it — picks out all the photos it believes you’ve taken of yourself. In both cases, the technology represents yet another step forward in treating photos as quantifiable data. Algorithms are becoming increasingly intelligent and able to help us understand what or who (in Facebook’s case) is in a photo or video. Until now. Now, photos can be analyzed by ‘robot algorithms’ to give them structure — what’s in it, what color is it, where was it taken, who is in it, are the people pulling a happy or sad face, etc. This opens up an entirely new realm of data to mine for insights. And social media is at the very forefront of applying the technology.

Americans among the injured in the Paris attacks

"The‎ United States Embassy in Paris is working round the clock to assist American citizens affected by this tragedy," Toner said in a statement. "‎The U.S. government is working closely with French authorities to identify American victims. We are aware there are Americans among the injured, and are offering them the full range of consular assistance." In Paris, a Syrian passport was found near the body of an attacker outside the Stade de France, according to a police source, CNN affiliate France 2 said. Multiple local media are reporting the same. Also on Saturday, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the state of emergency in France could mean restrictions on people's movements, among other measures. Border controls were tightened as of Friday, and the gendarmerie paramilitary police are on heightened alert, he said.

ISIS Claims Responsibility for Paris Attack

SINONE, Iraq — The Islamic State claimed responsibility on Saturday for the catastrophic attacks in the French capital, calling them “the first of the storm” and mocking France as a “capital of prostitution and obscenity,” according to statements released in multiple languages on one of the terror group’s encrypted messaging accounts. The remarks came in a communiqué published in Arabic, English and French on the Islamic State’s Telegram account and then distributed via their supporters on Twitter, according to a transcript provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist propaganda. An earlier statement was released but was deemed unlikely to be authentic because of anomalies in the language used, as well as an error in a date provided, according to experts on jihadist propaganda. The statement was released on the same Telegram channel that was used to claim responsibility for the crash of a Russian jet over the Sinai Peninsula two weeks ago, killing 224 people. As in that case, it made the announcement in multiple languages and audio recordings.

Paris rocked by explosions and deadly shootings

More than 120 people were killed in attacks across Paris on Friday night. President François Hollande called the attacks an “act of war” and blamed the Islamic State. The authorities continued to look for possible accomplices of the eight attackers known so far. In the past, Francis has described global violence in the 21st century as a “third word war.” Asked whether he saw the attacks in Paris as an another element of that war, he said, “This is a piece of it.”