If you’ve been on Facebook since last Friday’s attacks in Paris, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled into the Front National’s image bank – the social media site is currently hosting a flood of French flags, applied via a function enabled by Facebook in the immediate aftermath of the attacks which is, frankly, deeply problematic.

So you want to show solidarity with France – specifically, with those killed in Paris this weekend. If you’re a British person who wants to do that because you feel sympathy and sadness for people who are brutally massacred, regardless of their nationality, then fine. I just hope that you also change your profile picture to a different country’s flag every time people are wrongly killed as the result of international conflicts – for example, during the attack on Beirut in Lebanon just the day before.

Concert-goer captures start of Bataclan attack

In the west, we’re all too often taught to buy into Euro-centrism and to readily accept corporate branding initiatives in the guise of human kindness. Facebook’s use of the flag, as well as the new use of its Safety Check feature in the wake of the Paris attacks – the first time it has been used for an act of conflict rather than a natural disaster – is an example of both of these.

World's monuments show solidarity with Paris Show all 30 1 /30 World's monuments show solidarity with Paris World's monuments show solidarity with Paris National Portrait Gallery, London, UK World's monuments show solidarity with Paris London Eye, UK World's monuments show solidarity with Paris Sydney Opera House, Australia World's monuments show solidarity with Paris The Christ the Redeemer statue, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil World's monuments show solidarity with Paris The Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt World's monuments show solidarity with Paris The HSBC building, Hong Kong, China World's monuments show solidarity with Paris California State University, Long Beach, USA World's monuments show solidarity with Paris US Embassy, Paris World's monuments show solidarity with Paris The Swiss Parliament, Bern, Switzerland World's monuments show solidarity with Paris Chhatrapati Shivaji train station building, Mumbai, India World's monuments show solidarity with Paris The Eiffel Tower, Paris World's monuments show solidarity with Paris Wembley Stadium, London World's monuments show solidarity with Paris The fortress 'Tsarevets', Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria World's monuments show solidarity with Paris The SSE Hydro arena, Glasgow, Scotland World's monuments show solidarity with Paris The Story Bridge, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia World's monuments show solidarity with Paris The Perth Council house, Perth, Australia World's monuments show solidarity with Paris Plaza Francia (France's Square), Caracas, Venezuela World's monuments show solidarity with Paris World's monuments show solidarity with Paris Penshaw Monument, Sunderland, UK World's monuments show solidarity with Paris St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, Australia World's monuments show solidarity with Paris Chile's presidential palace La Moneda, Santiago, Chile World's monuments show solidarity with Paris World's monuments show solidarity with Paris World's monuments show solidarity with Paris World's monuments show solidarity with Paris De La Salle university, Manila, Philippines World's monuments show solidarity with Paris The Greenland Centre, Jinan city, China World's monuments show solidarity with Paris Calagary Tower, Alberta, Canada World's monuments show solidarity with Paris The Senate building, Mexico City Reuters/Tomas Bravo World's monuments show solidarity with Paris One World Trade Centre, New York, USA World's monuments show solidarity with Paris The Angel de la Independencia monument, Mexico City

Euro-centrism - a worldview which centres and places overemphasised importance on the West - reinforces its supremacy through actions like these. And there’s no ignoring the fact that this stems from European colonisation. How deeply ironic, considering that the colonisation of the Middle East and wars carried out in Muslim lands put down the roots for extremist groups such as Isis.

It’s a dismaying and damaging truth that Westerners care about and empathise with images of white-skinned women grieving in Topshop bobble hats far more than brown-skinned women grieving in niqabs and, when you lend your voice to Euro-centric campaigns such as Facebook’s flag filter, you exacerbate this. When we buy into such easy corporate public mourning, we uphold white supremacy. We’re essentially saying that white, Western lives matter more than others.

This sentiment, when it washes across the world via Facebook in a sea of blue, white and red, provides a get-out-of-jail-free card for the West’s slaughter of Middle Eastern people in retaliation, causing the very thing we’re supposed to be up in arms over: the loss of innocent lives.

Flags are politically and historically charged symbols (just look at the infamous and aptly self-styled Isis flag itself), symbolising states and representing influence, power, segregation, borders, nationalism and identity – some of the most commonly held reasons for armed conflict. It’s important, before overlaying a flag on your smiling face, to think about this.

The irony of showing solidarity in this particular circumstance by co-opting the Tricolore is palpable considering the historical imperialism that, in the long term, helped to generate Isis, the political imperialism that drives them and the cultural imperialism that European flags represent. Given that Isis itself is known for its political propaganda through symbolism and social media - and that we decry the brainwashing of youths recruited to extremist causes via these means - why do we accept and promote propaganda when it’s handed to us by a social media corporation at the click of a button and without a second thought?

I’m guessing you didn’t feel moved to drape yourself in the Tricolore until Facebook pushed that option out to you, possibly even until you saw how many people had already snapped it up. But paint-by-numbers solidarity when it’s foisted on you by one of the most powerful companies in the world is simply not the way to help a traumatised nation in shock after murder.

Instead, seek out that context and the options that Facebook doesn’t give you in a simple, clickable add-on. If you want to show true solidarity with those who’ve been wrongfully killed, the first step is to acknowledge and mourn their deaths equally and genuinely, not just because they’ve brought to your attention by a tech giant’s misguided marketing tool. Quite simply, we owe victims of oppression round the world so much more than this.