Facebook ‘Safety Check’: let friends know you’re OK
AIDR
Article
www.facebook.com/about/safetycheck/
Facebook’s ‘Safety Check’ feature gives Facebook users a way to check on family and friends during natural disasters.
During a disaster, Safety Check helps users:
- let friends and family know they are safe
- check on friends and family in an affected area
- share information about a friend or family member’s status.
The feature uses the location information provided to Facebook. This includes:
- the city listed in the Facebook profile
- Facebook friends’ nearby check-ins
- the city in which a user is connected to the internet.
If there is a major event in an area a user has checked in from, Facebook sends a push notification asking if they are okay. Users can specify that they are safe (which will post a status their friends can see) or say they are not in the affected area.
A simple I’m safe / I’m not in the area message (and optional comments) will be visible to people in the user’s friends list.