Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has announced that, in the wake of Friday's attacks in Paris , Facebook's Safety Check feature will now cover human disasters. Zuckerberg's announcement was made through a Facebook post in which he responded to questions on why it wasn't activated for last week's bombing in Beirut that killed 44 people .
Facebook is one of the first places that
people turn during a crisis to try and find out if their friends and
family are affected.
He said:
"Until
yesterday, our policy was only to activate Safety Check for natural
disasters. We just changed this and now plan to activate Safety Check
for more human disasters going forward as well,"
"Thank you to everyone who has reached out with questions and
concerns about this. You are right that there are many other important
conflicts in the world."
"Since we activated Safety Check in Paris, we have heard
positive feedback about how reassuring it is to receive notifications
that a friend or loved one is safe," said Alex Schultz, Facebook's vice
president of growth.
"I personally have received several from people I know and love and have felt first hand the impact of this tool," he explained in a post describing Facebook's decision to extend the use of Safety Check.
"We
chose to activate Safety Check in Paris because we observed a lot of
activity on Facebook as the events were unfolding. In the middle of a
complex, uncertain situation affecting many people, Facebook became a
place where people were sharing information and looking to understand
the condition of their loved ones.
"We talked with our employees on the ground, who felt that
there was still a need that we could fill. So we made the decision to
try something we've never done before: activating Safety Check for
something other than a natural disaster. There has to be a first time
for trying something new, even in complex and sensitive times, and for
us that was Paris."
"We want this tool to be available whenever and wherever it can help."
No comments:
Post a Comment