14 DAY TRIAL // The Facebook Safety Check feature can now be used for more than its original intent, namely for helping people access food, shelter, transportation, baby supplies, and equipment.
Named Community Help, this new expansion seeks to bring some more help to the world. Initially, Safety Check was only meant to help users mark themselves as “safe” during natural disasters or various other times of crisis. Now, when people get marked as safe on Facebook, they’re redirected to a page where they can find help or offer help to those in need.
Say, a tornado blew through town and destroyed countless houses. While you may be safe, your neighbors might be in trouble. If you want, you can signal that you have enough water stored to share with others, or perhaps you can offer them a place to sleep until the authorities manage to get their feet under them.
Safety Check has proven to be a valuable tool and it can only become more so with this new expansion. In the years since the feature has been available, it has been turned on hundreds of times.
Slowly rolling out
After Facebook had received heavy criticism that they were using the feature only when they thought was appropriate, the company tweaked the code so that people’s posts regarding various situations would automatically trigger it. Thus, the service follows various keywords such as “earthquake,” “explosion,” or “shooting” in concentrated areas to know when it should react and start asking people whether they’re safe or not.
Facebook announced its intention of expanding Safety Check a few months back in order to help communities band together in times of need. Its aim is to avoid situations like those before when in a time of need - the wildfire in Alberta in May last year - people offering help couldn’t properly connect to those who sought shelter.
Community Help will roll out first in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and Saudi Arabia, before becoming available everywhere else.