Facebook activates Safety Check after Brussels attack

3/23/2016 9:19:50 AM

(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Facebook activated its “Safety Check” feature Tuesday following bombings in Belgium allowing users near the attacks to announce to Facebook friends that they were safe.

Explosions ripped through an airport and subway station in Brussels killing at least 34 victims.

A little more than two hours following the attack Facebook activated the Safety Check tool. Users in the area surrounding Brussels were offered the option to mark themselves “Safe” “Unsafe” or “Not in the Area” and let others in their network know their status.

Affected users’ Facebook friends will then get a notification on their individual newsfeed. “Quickly find and connect with friends in the area” the feature’s prompt reads.

“Mark them safe if you know they're OK.”

Shortly after the bombings many phone networks in the area were downed due to a spike in use.

Many requested Facebook turn on Safety Check and questioned why it took the company so long to do so.

“Where is your safety check tool for Brussels Facebook?” one European Facebook user tweeted soon after the explosions.

Safety Check first launched in 2011 after the tsunami and nuclear accident in Fukushima Japan. It was originally built for natural disasters like the earthquake in Nepal last April.

However following the attacks in Paris in November Facebook pledged to utilize the feature for manmade disasters such as attacks executed by violent extremists.

Since the Paris attacks Safety Check was used after a November 2015 bombing in Nigeria and an attack in Ankara earlier this month.

Facebook received criticism for using the feature for the shootings in Paris but not rolling it out for attacks in Beirut and Baghdad.

In response Facebook vowed to utilize Safety Check more often for disasters all around the globe.

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