Skip to main content

Eiffel Tower to be lit up using social media posts during Euro 2016 soccer tournament

paris day without cars at night
FCG / Shutterstock
France is allowing social media users to take over one of its most iconic landmarks for the month-long duration of the Euro 2016 soccer tournament.

Sports fans will be able to determine the colors that will adorn the Eiffel Tower in Paris through their posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Cellular carrier Orange will then trawl through each social network to determine which team’s supporters were the most vocal. The nation that has the most hashtag mentions will have its team colors light up the city’s towering attraction soon after the end of each day’s final match.

Orange, which is an official sponsor of the Euro 2016 tournament, states that it will also project the most creative social media posts on to the structure, reports Quartz.

Seeing as the history of branded social media campaigns has been littered with mishaps, Orange is relying on a large team of moderators to eliminate any trolls from the selection process. The company claims it has created a “blacklist” of words that won’t count towards a country’s tally, and that the posts that it will project will all be handpicked.

Euro 2016 will kick off on June 10, with host France set to take on Russia in the opening match. The tournament will conclude on July 10 with the finalists battling it out for the trophy at the country’s national stadium, the Stade de France.

Like most major sporting events, social media activity during the tournament will likely be frenzied. If it reaches even a fraction of the staggering 32.1 million tweets that were shared during the 2014 FIFA World Cup final, Orange will have a massive task on its hands.

Saqib Shah
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Saqib Shah is a Twitter addict and film fan with an obsessive interest in pop culture trends. In his spare time he can be…
Bluesky barrels toward 1 million new sign-ups in a day
Bluesky social media app logo.

Social media app Bluesky has picked nearly a million new users just a day after exiting its invitation-only beta and opening to everyone.

In a post on its main rival -- X (formerly Twitter) -- Bluesky shared a chart showing a sudden boost in usage on the app, which can now be downloaded for free for iPhone and Android devices.

Read more
How to make a GIF from a YouTube video
woman sitting and using laptop

Sometimes, whether you're chatting with friends or posting on social media, words just aren't enough -- you need a GIF to fully convey your feelings. If there's a moment from a YouTube video that you want to snip into a GIF, the good news is that you don't need complex software to so it. There are now a bunch of ways to make a GIF from a YouTube video right in your browser.

If you want to use desktop software like Photoshop to make a GIF, then you'll need to download the YouTube video first before you can start making a GIF. However, if you don't want to go through that bother then there are several ways you can make a GIF right in your browser, without the need to download anything. That's ideal if you're working with a low-specced laptop or on a phone, as all the processing to make the GIF is done in the cloud rather than on your machine. With these options you can make quick and fun GIFs from YouTube videos in just a few minutes.
Use GIFs.com for great customization
Step 1: Find the YouTube video that you want to turn into a GIF (perhaps a NASA archive?) and copy its URL.

Read more
I paid Meta to ‘verify’ me — here’s what actually happened
An Instagram profile on an iPhone.

In the fall of 2023 I decided to do a little experiment in the height of the “blue check” hysteria. Twitter had shifted from verifying accounts based (more or less) on merit or importance and instead would let users pay for a blue checkmark. That obviously went (and still goes) badly. Meanwhile, Meta opened its own verification service earlier in the year, called Meta Verified.

Mostly aimed at “creators,” Meta Verified costs $15 a month and helps you “establish your account authenticity and help[s] your community know it’s the real us with a verified badge." It also gives you “proactive account protection” to help fight impersonation by (in part) requiring you to use two-factor authentication. You’ll also get direct account support “from a real person,” and exclusive features like stickers and stars.

Read more