Laura Mandaro

USA TODAY Network

Twitter has painted #blacklivesmatter on a wall at its San Francisco headquarters, placing the company squarely into the national debate about excessive force used by police with blacks.

Staff at Twitter shared a picture of the wall on Thursday. The same evening, Twitter hosted a forum on increasing diversity at tech companies. It included the ex-CEO of the NAACP, Benjamin Todd Jealous; partners at Kapor Capital, a socially-minded incubator based in Oakland, Calif.; and former vice president Al Gore.

Twitter's own workforce is similar to the rest of Silicon Valley -- largely white or Asian and male, a point that wasn't missed by some viewing the company's themed wall over Twitter. But its co-founder Jack Dorsey (@Jack) who is from St. Louis, and other employees have been more vocal about issues of race and ethnicity.

The wall's painted hashtag makes it into the pubic eye from time to time, usually reflecting a spike in trending hashtags around an event. In August, the wall sported #Ferguson, reflecting the intense conversation that occurred on Twitter in the days following the shooting death of unarmed black teen Michael Brown by a white police officer.

On Friday, Twitter released a map showing the frequency in use in the hashtags #BlackLivesMatter, #HandsUpDontShoot and #ICantBreathe since November 24, the day a grand jury in Ferguson, Mo. decided not to press charges against Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot Brown.

Retweeted by Jack Dorsey:

Twitter hosts an event it says will "examine progress toward Creating a More Diverse Tech Ecosystem."

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