Safety Check allows affected users in a disaster-hit region to notify their friends and family on Facebook that they are safe. Users can check notifications, mark themselves safe and see if their friends are safe to. It has been activated a handful of times since then. “A couple of passionate people at Facebook hacked together a solution that evolved into the Safety Check tool people are seeing today”, writes Schultz.
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Facebook’s Vice President of Growth, Alex Schultz, also explained the company’s decision to activate the tool in Paris in a separate post on Friday, reported Mashable.
Facebook rolled out its “Safety Check” feature amid Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris – the first time the service was deployed outside of natural disasters. According to the critics, Facebook is being biased towards western people, valuing their life more than those in other regions.
One of the most helpless feelings is knowing a friend or family member could be in harms way, and not knowing if they are safe.
“You are right that there are many other important conflicts in the world”, Zuckerberg wrote in a comment on Facebook.
Facebook also added an option for users to add a French flag overlay to their profile image; there was no Lebanese overlay on Thursday. Using the hashtag #SafetyCheck, people on Twitter urged each other to make use of the new Facebook feature.
Safety Check generally works like this: Facebook asks users if they are safe based on their location.
In a post on his Facebook page, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said the feature would now we be used more frequently.
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The move came after the company was criticized for not turning on their safety checks for Beirut and other bombings but only for Paris. “We want this tool to be available whenever and wherever it can help”, the company said. The social network said that it saw how people were using technology and social media to stay connected during that period and this is what Safety Check was built for.
