Newsletter
Whenever you hear of a natural disaster occurring where your family or friends live, it’s always an uncomfortable wait to find out if everyone is ok, or if tragedy struck a little too close to home. You only have to think about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, or Hurricane Katrina a little closer home to understand the anguish of not knowing everyone is ok. Facebook believes they have the solution to this problem, with the announcement of Safety Check.
Safety Check is a tool that Facebook has developed to help people connect during times of tragedy. The tool will activate if you have the misfortune to be near a natural disaster that has occurred, and ask if you are safe via a Facebook notification, as shown in the main image. All you have to do is select the pertinent option and Safety Check will generate a post to your News Feed informing friends and loved ones that you are indeed safe. Your friends or family can also choose to mark you as safe.
Facebook have announced that Safety Check will be available globally, and be platform agnostic. This means that regardless of whether you have access to a computer, a smartphone or even a feature phone, you will be able to inform your Facebook contacts that you are safe. Its always possible that Facebook could get your location wrong though, and if they do you can choose mark that you weren’t in fact any where near the disaster area.Facebook says that Safety Check will activate if you are in an affected area after a natural disaster, it’s unknown whether the tool will activate after man-made disasters such as shootings or terrorist attacks though.
So, it’s a useful feature, and seeing as we are quick to lambast Facebook when it does something wrong, they deserve some praise for the development of Safety Check. Check out the video below showing exactly what Safety Check is all about and let us know your thoughts in the comments below or at our Google Plus page.
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