Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has announced the activation of Facebook Safety Check in Nigeria after last night’s bombing in Yola, Adamawa State.
Facebook’s Safety Check is a feature activated during natural or man-made disasters to quickly determine whether people in the affected geographical area are safe. Previously named the Disaster Message Board, it was introduce on October 15, 2014. It was developed by Facebook’s engineers in Japan, inspired by people’s use of social media to connect with friends and family in the wake of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Its first major deployment was on Saturday, April 25, 2015 in the wake of the April 2015 Nepal earthquake.
The decision to use Safety Check for non-natural disasters started with the Paris attacks last week. Facebook was heavily criticised for not doing this before Paris was attacked. Based on this, it decided to enable the function on Monday, 17th of November saying
“Many people have rightfully asked why we turned on Safety Check for Paris but not for bombings in Beirut and other places. Until yesterday, 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.”
On the announcement on the activation of Facebook Safety Check in Nigeria, here is Mark’s Facebook post:
We’ve activated Safety Check again after the bombing in Nigeria this evening.
After the Paris attacks last week, we made the decision to use . We’re now working quickly to develop criteria for the new policy and determine when and how this service can be most useful.
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.
In times like this, it’s important to remind ourselves that despite the alarming frequency of these terrible events, violence is actually at an all-time low in history and continues to decline.
Deaths from war are lower than ever, murder rates are generally dropping around the world, and — although it’s hard to believe — even terrorist attacks are declining.
Please don’t let a small minority of extremists make you pessimistic about our future.
Every member of our community spreads empathy and understanding on a daily basis. We are all connecting the world together. And if we all do our part, then one day there may no longer be attacks like this.
