Facebook enabled its “Safety Check” feature on Tuesday for the second time in under a week after a blast in Nigeria left users scrambling to check on the status of friends and family.
While the social networking site has rolled-out the service sporadically in recent years following natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, the decision to deploy the feature in the aftermath of an apparent bombing in the Nigerian city of Yola late Tuesday occurred only days after “Safety Check” was made available for account holders affected by Friday’s tragedy in Paris, France.
When activated, Facebook allows users in a given area to click a button that instantly allows their connections to see that they’re safe. Prior to Friday’s tragedy, however, the feature had only been made enabled in the wake of natural disasters.
“After the Paris attacks last week, we made the decision to use Safety Check for more tragic events like this going forward. We’re now working quickly to develop criteria for the new policy and determine when and how this service can be most useful,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said late Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, these kinds of events are all too common, so I won’t post about all of them. A loss of human life anywhere is a tragedy, and we’re committed to doing our part to help people in more of these situations,” he said.
Facebook took heat for activating Safety Check for Paris users last week as critics called out the website for failing to roll-out the feature following similar attacks that hadn’t garnered the same degree of media attention in the west.
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“Until [Friday], 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,” Mr. Zuckerberg explained last week. “We care about all people equally, and we will work hard to help people suffering in as many of these situations as we can.”
At least 32 people have died as a result of Tuesday’s attack in Nigeria. The perpetrators of the assault have not yet taken credit for their actions, but the region is considered to be a hotbed for extremist activity perpetrated by the terror group Boko Haram.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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