FollowFacebook takes care of its folks! Yesterday we saw how Facebook made egg freezing a work benefit for every woman who works for them and today it implemented a new feature, the Facebook Safety Check, so that your friends know you’re alright in case natural disasters strike. Let’s take an in-depth look at what the feature offers.
Facebook Safety Check
The Facebook Safety Check is a new feature from Facebook that uses your current location it obtains through your IP address and city listen in your profile, to send a message out to your friends’ News Feed in case of a natural disaster. Let’s say there is an big earthquake in are where you live and the phone lines are down. Facebook will send you a push notification in which it asks you if you are safe. You have two options for reply: I am safe and I am not in the area. You simply choose the one that suits you and Facebook lets everyone know you are alright.
The feature is slowly being rolled out and Japan was the first country where the Facebook Safety Check was introduced, possibly because of the high number of earthquake the country experiences. Vice President of Product Management at Facebook, Naomi Gleit, had this to say about the Facebook Safety Check:
Our engineers in Japan 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.
The social media giant is working together with authorities in order to flag disasters and the test in Japan was a massive success. We’re expecting the feature to come to Facebook pretty soon, so keep your eye on it!
What are your thoughts on the Facebook Safety Check? Are you happy such a thing exists? Tell us about it in the section below.
