14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook has over 1.3 billion users who log in every month, according to its latest numbers, and this means that the company has quite a bit of power when it comes to helping people in dire need.
This is why the company has introduced Safety Check, a new feature that is meant to help people check on loved ones and get updates in times of disaster or crisis, times when communication is essential.
“We want to provide a helpful tool that people can use when major disasters strike, so we’ve created Safety Check – a simple and easy way to say you’re safe and check on others,” reads a post signed by Facebook’s Naomi Gleit, VP of Product Management, Sharon Zeng, product manager, and Peter Cottle, software engineer.
The new tool will help you let friends and family know you’re safe, check on others in the affected area and mark your friends as safe. The information here won’t be public, but it will be visible to friends, who will be able to see the safety status and comments.
If you're in a disaster area, Facebook will check in with you
The company goes into more details to explain its decision to introduce the new feature. They mention the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, where more than 12.5 million people were affected and some 400,000 people were evacuated.
“During that crisis we saw how people used technology and social media to stay connected with those they care about,” Facebook notes, adding that it was the company’s engineers in Japan who took the first step toward creating a product to improve the experience of reconnecting after a disaster.
They built the Disaster Message Board to make it easier to communicate with others and launched a test of the tool a year later, getting an overwhelming response. The project soon became Safety Check, and it will become available soon in the entire world on Android, iOS, feature phones and desktop, linking everyone together.
As Facebook notes, this type of disasters happen quite frequently and every time relief organizations and first responders turn to Facebook in the aftermath of major natural disasters.
The tool is simple and easy to use, allowing people to connect with their network of friends and family in an instant. In case of a natural disaster, if you’re in the affected area, Facebook will send a notification asking if you’re safe, to which you should probably respond to make sure your family won’t worry too much about you.
“We’ll determine your location by looking at the city you have listed in your profile, your last location if you’ve opted in to the Nearby Friends product, and the city where you are using the internet,” Facebook explains.
If Facebook gets the location wrong, you can mark that you’re outside the affected area. Of course, if you’re safe, you should click the designated button. This will generate a news feed story that your friends can see. Your friends can also mark you as safe if for some reason you don’t have access to do it yourself.
Notifications will be sent to you whenever one of your friends in the area marks him/herself as safe.