Facebook Launches Safety Check

This article originally appeared on 60 Second Social.

Facebook is introducing a new feature called Safety Check for when users find themselves in the middle of a natural disaster and need to let people know they are okay.

The new feature will work by sending a push notification to your phone if you happen to end up in the area of a natural disaster. It determines your location based on cities listed in profiles, last locations on Nearby Friends and also from GPS coordinates obtained via the phones connection to the internet.

The idea is to take away the strain of posting a status update while near or in the location of a natural disaster and make it as easy as just tapping a button on your phone.

Safety Check was launched by Mark Zuckerberg in Japan yesterday where they are still trying to recover from the 2011 tsunami. Naomi Gleit, vice president of product managment at Facebook said the following;

“Our engineers in Japan took the first step toward creating a product to improve the experience of reconnecting after a disaster, they built the Disaster Message Board to make it easier to communicate with others.”

Safety Check will be available on iOS, Android, feature phones and on the desktop.

About The Author

Mark is the founder of 60 Second Social media where he provides social media news and digital marketing analysis, he is also a proud father of his bearded dragon, Lola. You can follow him on Twitter here. You can also follow 60 Second Social on Twitter here.