After the multiple attacks on Paris last Friday/Saturday, many with friends living in the city received a new type of notification from Facebook. The popular social media site activated a feature called Safety Check for the attacks which lets people in Paris easily tell their friends that they are currently safe.
While the feature has been a huge help for many, some netizens are complaining why is Facebook only limiting the feature in Paris and not the other countries that were attacked – like the twin suicide bombing that killed over 40 in Beirut, earthquake near Japan and other more countries.
Yesterday (Sunday), Facebook saw the perfect opportunity to the accusations in a blog post written by the company’s vice president of growth, Alex Schultz. In the blog post, he notes that this is the first time the company has enabled the Safety Check feature for anything other than a natural disaster.
Similar to a natural disaster, he said that during the attacks “Facebook became a place where people were sharing information and looking to understand the condition of their loved ones.” He also added that “There has to be a first time for trying something new, even in complex and sensitive time, and for us that was Paris.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also added those statements saying “”You are right that there are many other important conflicts in the world. We care about all people equally, and we will work hard to help people suffering in as many of these situations as we can.”
