Facebook Under Fire for Enabling Safety Check Only After Recent Terrorist Attacks

Terrorism proliferates around the world where many people died and many live ruined. Just recently, Paris, France experienced a terrorist attack as well as Beirut and Nigeria. Most people learn about these incidents through social media primarily, Facebook. Due to these violence, Facebook has decided to activate its safety check feature after the Nigeria bombing.

According to ABC News, despite of Facebook's help in connecting the victims and their family, it received unfavorable criticisms as to why it has not activated the feature after several terrorist bombings around the world. The social media platform has been using its safety check for natural disasters only.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook said, "After the Paris attacks last week, we made the decision to use Safety Check for more tragic events like this going forward. We're now working quickly to develop criteria for the new policy and determine when and how this service can be most useful."

Though Facebook's safety feature helped a lot of family and victims alike in determining their family member's current situation during the Paris attack, many are disappointed with Facebook's "selective use of the service" especially during the day before the Paris shootings when southern Beirut in Lebanon was attacked.

Zuckerberg also added, "Until yesterday [the day of the Paris attacks], our policy was only to activate Safety Check for natural disasters. We just changed this and now plan to activate Safety Check for more human disasters going forward as well. We care about all people equally, and we will work hard to help people suffering in as many of these situations as we can."

In a report by TechCrunch, Facebook has activated its Safety Check Feature after a bombing in a Nigerian market killed dozens of people. The move of the social media platform is said to be part of their "commitment to provide this service more."

Zuckerberg said, "Unfortunately, these kinds of events are all too common, so I won't post about all of them. A loss of human life anywhere is a tragedy, and we're committed to doing our part to help people in more of these situations."