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Facebook Makes Safety Check a Permanent Feature (techcrunch.com)
Facebook announced today that its "Safety Check" feature will be permanent in its app and on the desktop. The feature lets you check to see whether friends and family are safe following a crisis. TechCrunch reports: The change comes following new terrorist attacks, including one in Barcelona, where a vehicle was driven into a crowd, as well as the attack in Charlottesville, here in the U.S. According to Facebook, the dedicated button is gradually rolling out to users starting today, and will complete over the upcoming weeks. That means you may not see the option right away, but likely will soon. When Safety Check is accessed by way of the new button, you'll be able to view a feed of disasters, updates from friends who marked themselves as safe and offers of help. An "around the world" section will display where Safety Check has been recently enabled, too.
I'm not saying it's time to round up the muslims and put them in camps for our safety, but surely it's time to ask the question.
I like how Facebook has decided that the car incident in Charlottesville, where a driver's car is swarmed with protestors with bats who bash the car and smash the windows and THEN the driver accelerates is a "terrorist attack".
When an islamic driver plowed into a crowd at a street carnival and kept going and did it again and kept going and did it again and kept going and did it again... Facebook told us we had to wait and not rush to judgement and, even then, that wasn't a sign of terrorism but just a domestic incident.
I'm glad they're making this a permanent feature but can't help but wonder if Facebook now gets to determine what's a valid "disaster".
Who watches the watchers?