How Facebook’s Safety Check Works
I noticed on Facebook during this horrible tragedy in Paris that there was some worry because not everyone had checked in using Safety Check. So I thought people might want to know a little more about how Safety Check works.
If a friend or family member hasn't checked-in yet it doesn't mean anything bad has happened to them. Please keep that in mind. Safety Check is a good system, but not a perfect system, so keep your hopes up.
This is a really short version, there's a longer article if you are interested.
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How it works:
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If you are in an area impacted by a disaster Facebook will send you a push notification asking if you are OK.
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Tapping the “I’m Safe” button marks that your are safe.
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All your friends are notified that you are safe.
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Friends can also see a list of all the people impacted by the disaster and how they are doing.
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How do you build the pool of people impacted by a disaster in a certain area? Building a geoindex is the obvious solution, but it has weaknesses.
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People are constantly moving so the index will be stale.
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A geoindex of 1.5 billion Continue reading
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