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.

Comments

The reach of social media

[simplypeachy]

Wow. I had no idea just how deeply social media's infection had reached into people's lives. People carry around "disaster alerts" in their pockets now? They expect their friends and family to actively mark themselves as "safe"? I can't fathom what it must be like to live such a life of fear.

Re:The reach of social media

[thegarbz]

You completely failed to get the point. Facebook is a primary method of mass communication for many, as is twitter. Much of the news of the day now happens on these networks first. With everyone being a producer of the content it also makes it the most easy to get word out about people's status.

We're not living lives of fear, we're living lives of anxiety. We always have. You may not remember the bombings in Manchester in 1996. I do. I had a lump in my throat for about 10 hours while I was wondering if my cousin who worked in the area was still alive before a family member finally managed to get him on the phone.

Compared to that last week while we were at work when news broke of the Barcelona attack we all wondered if one of our colleagues was okay. Not 10min passed before her Facebook status was marked as "safe" even though she was on Las Ramblas at the time of the attack.

Thinking that this is a bad feature doesn't show the world is afraid, it shows you lack empathy.

Re:The reach of social media

[simplypeachy]

I do empathise. I feel sadness that you and your "we" are living lives of anxiety.

Re:We have nothing to fear

[gsslay]

One more every-day feature designed to heighten people's fear of something statistically very unlike to happen to them. I look forward to it being extended to an feature where every time you log in, it automatically messages all your Facebook 'friends' that you haven't been struck by a bus, fallen in a lake, choked on your sandwich or 101 other possible ways someone, somewhere may have died recently.

Hang on, it's been a full 10 minutes since I reassured everyone on Facebook I'm still living, and I hear someone fell off their bike in Australia. They need to know it wasn't me. Be right back....

Stay safe everyone. I worry about you and it's be a while.

Re: We have nothing to fear

[Anonymous Coward]

Redneck killed one person. Muslims do this shit all the time, yet the media says we should fear the rednecks. Laughable.

The people who lost family to Dylann Roof still aren't laughing. Was he a Muslim?

The people who lost family to Mohammed Atta aren't laughing, either, and there are a LOT more of those. Yeah, he's a Muslim.

The people who last family to Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik aren't laughing, either, and there are more of those. Yeah, they're both Muslim.

The people who lost family to Omar Mateen aren't laughing, either, and there are more of those. You guessed it, he's a Muslim.

The people who lost family to Khalid Masood aren't laughing, either. Yep, ANOTHER Muslim.

The people who lost family to Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Hasib Hussain, and Germaine Lindsay aren't laughing, either, and there are a lot more of them. Despite the name, they were - surprise - ALL Muslims.

The people who lost family to Salman Ramadan Abedi aren't laughing, either. And AGAIN there are a LOT more of them. Shockingly, he's another Muslim.

Re:We have nothing to fear

[Ol Olsoc]

Did you ever think that she was fine all along, and there was no crisis, and that you have been conditioned by the media to freak out? Why did your heart sink? You really, honestly, and truly thought that your friend had been killed?

This. Humans, especially the less intelligent ones, are only capable of thinking in a tribal fashion. They hear news from around the world, but they think of it as if it's local. That way a little girl who is kidnapped is mentally processed as Suzy frmo next door, or any other disaster is just like it happened in their own town. I don't specifically blame the media, but human tribalism, aided by safety culture's fear of everything.

Re:We have nothing to fear

[Ol Olsoc]

Jesus Christ, you're full of shit. Yes, those of us who leave our parents' basements from time to time have people that we care about. When those people are in the vicinity of violence or natural disaster, we worry about them. We can't all be autistic robots concerned only with the collection of waifu dolls donning our Cheeto-encrusted desks.

Or maybe he understands something. Once this feature is established, and people are addicted, imagine what is going to happen. Let's take a relatively benign disaster, a big blizzard that knocks down power lines over a large area. Your loved one can't check into Facebook because their cell phone towers have lost power, and the emergency batteries have gone flat. So while they may be perfectly safe, maybe a little chilly, but blankets and candles might just make for a fun evening with their SO, if you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, you are shitting your pants because you watched the news and they haven't checked into Facebook yet.

You think they are in a snowbank, dead as door nails, human popsicles while they are enjoying some sexy snuggling.

Safety culture, making us feel completely unsafe since forever.