Facebook knows that when a natural disaster or other major crisis hits, many people turn to social media to connect with loved ones, ask for or offer help in their communities, and raise money for charitable causes. The company is now putting all of those tools in one place. [More]
Safety Check
New Facebook Safety Check Feature Lets Users Offer, Get Help In A Crisis
By 2.8.17
More than two years after Facebook launched its Safety Check tool as a way for users to let their friends and family know they’re okay in a crisis, the social media company is adding a feature that will allow people to ask for help, as well as offer it, when natural disasters or other emergency situations occur. [More]
Facebook Accidentally Asks People On Other Side Of World From Incident To Confirm They’re Safe
By 3.28.16
Facebook is basically everywhere, connecting to almost 22% of the world’s population. So if you need to find out in a hurry — during a natural disaster or a large-scale attack — if people in the area are doing okay, Facebook is well-positioned to be the quickest, fastest tool for that. To that end, they created safety check a while back. Except for one small detail: a tool for seeing who is okay based on their location only works if you know that Pittsburgh and Pakistan aren’t the same place. [More]
Facebook Adds New Safety Check Feature To Let Loved Ones Know You’re Okay After A Disaster
By 10.16.14
I’ll never forget the one time I’ve felt an earthquake in New York City. Not because it was anything scary — it was only a brief, jarring moment in an elevator — but because it seemed like every person I knew outside of the area was reaching out whether through text, phone call, email or social media to make sure I was okay (I was totally fine, but it was nice anyway). Facebook has a new feature called Safety Check that it says will make that whole process a lot easier. [More]
