Facebook began work on the Safety Check feature following the Tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster that struck Japan in 2011, and first made it available to users previous year.
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CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded to complaints on his Facebook page, promising to include the feature in other human disasters in the future.
Facebook Inc has activated its “Safety Check” feature after deadly blasts in Nigeria late on Tuesday.
The post came as critics pointed out on social media that the outpouring of support following Friday night’s coordinated terror attacks in Paris far outstripped the public sympathy after recent similar attacks in Beirut and Baghdad.
“We are learning to make the tool and policies behind it better as we go – and because Safety Check is a relatively new feature for us, we’re still understanding how it can best be used and in what instances”, Schultz continued.
Previously only used in the event of natural disasters, the California company activated Safety Check in the wake of last week’s Paris attacks as a way to quickly check on loved ones. Hopefully Facebook, as Zuckerberg has said, will now deploy it in other non-Western countries too.
“Each time, we see people use Facebook to check on their loved ones and see if they’re safe”.
“Thank you to everyone who has reached out with questions and concerns about this”, said Zuckerberg.
On Wednesday morning (Nov. 18), an explosion ripped through a market in the northeastern Nigerian city of Yola, a site of previous Boko Haram attacks, killing 30 people and injurying many others, the BBC is reporting. “We will learn a lot from feedback on this launch” Facebook’s Safety Check tool sends users in the affected area a note asking them if they’re safe.
Facebook has also created a way for people to put the colours of the French flag over their profile picture.
The notification tool is simple and easy to use.
Because Safety Check is new, Schultz says Facebook is still working out how best to use it. He also says in its current form, it is not ideal in a conflict that doesn’t have a clear start or end point.
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“We talked with our employees on the ground, who felt that there was still a need that we could fill”.
