Facebook activated its Safety Check feature for Chennai on December 3. The activation happened two days after the city had been under water. But what a change it caused.
You didn’t have to call your friends and relatives to learn their status. Every time you logged into your Facebook account you had a notification stating whether your friend was safe or not.
Facebook needs to be congratulated for developing such a useful application. Its value can be judged from the fact that the Facebook supremo Mark Zuckerberg himself had announced its launch in October last year.
“Safety Check is our way of helping our community during natural disasters and gives you an easy and simple way to say you’re safe and check on all your friends and family in one place,” Zuckerberg had stated.
The Safety Check was first activated during the Nepal earthquake. Later, it was activated for Tropical Cyclone Pam in the South Pacific and Typhoon Ruby in the Philippines.
The tool was primarily developed to inform about the safety of loved ones trapped in places that were hit by natural disasters or calamities like earthquakes, floods, typhoons etc. But in November this year, Facebook activated the Safety Check during the Paris bombings.
What Safety Check does
The Safety Check helps you to:
- Let your friends and family know you’re safe
- Check on others in the affected area
- Mark your friends as safe
Facebook ensures that your safety status and your comments reach only your friends, and that there is no spamming.
How Safety Check works
Facebook activates Safety Check only in those cities/areas that have been struck by a natural calamity, where it is difficult for people to communicate and where they turn to Social Media to reach out.
Once the Safety Check is activated, Facebook members who are in the affected area receive a Facebook notification asking if they are safe.
The notification is sent based on the following three criteria:
1. Location of the member as listed in the member’s profile
2. Last location if the member has opted in to the Nearby Friends product
3. City from where the member had last logged into Facebook.
Members can mark that they are not in the affected area if Facebook gets their location worng.
Otherwise, you are given the option to mark yourself as “I’m Safe”. The moment you mark yourself Safe, Facebook issues a notification that goes to all Facebook members in your network.
Facebook says, “Safety Check remains a work in progress, but one that has helped many people stay in touch with their friends and family during difficult times. We’re going to continue working to make it better and more useful.”