Washtenaw County led country in changing Facebook profile picture for marriage equality

If you've uttered the sentence "My Facebook newsfeed seems to be nothing but equal signs lately," you're not alone — especially if you live in Washtenaw County.

Facebook officials reported that people from Washtenaw County were more likely to change their profile picture to the pink-on-red equal sign than those from any other county in the country.

The symbol, which is advocated by the Human Rights Campaign, is meant to show Facebook users' support for marriage equality.

Researchers with Facebook compiled massive amounts of data, tracking the effects of the HRC's campaign on Facebook users. Though people change their profile photos every day, analysts observed a spike in the trend corresponding with the time at which the HRC began urging people to upload the equals sign at 1 p.m. on Monday.

The next day, roughly 2.7 million more people changed their profile picture than the previous Tuesday — an increase of 120 percent.

After analyzing the data based on location, Facebook analysts determined the greatest increase of people changing their profile pictures occurred in Washtenaw County, where an estimated 6.2 percent of people who logged into Facebook changed their picture in response to the campaign.

The primary researcher, and author of the analysis, Eytan Bakshy, is an alumnus from the University of Michigan.

Kody Klein is an intern for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at kklein@mlive.com