Facebook has launched a new feature that will automatically activate during a natural disaster to alert friends and family of users on the status of their safety.
The new feature, dubbed as "Safety Check," allows users to inform everyone that they are safe. Users can check on other people in the affected area, and mark their friends as "safe" for others to see. The update and comments will be displayed only to those in the friends' list.
"We want to provide a helpful tool that people can use when major disasters strike, so we've created Safety Check - a simple and easy way to say you're safe and check on others," wrote Facebook in a blog post.
The social networking giant drew inspiration from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan that killed almost 16,000 people and injured more than 6,000. During the time, technology was proven to be paramount as a form of communication when people reached out through social media to check on their loved ones.
During a natural disaster, the tool will be activated, and will automatically send a notification to users in affected areas asking them if they are safe. Users can mark the location wrong in case they are outside of the affected area. Once the user selects the "I'm safe" option, it will be posted in the News Feed for friends to see.
Facebook's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, shared the history of the tool on Thursday in Japan. His Japanese employees created a Disaster Message Board within Facebook in 2011 to help their families and friends update each other during natural disasters. Product Manager Sharon Zeng and Software Engineer Peter Cottle developed it further when they saw the project 11 months ago, according to VentureBeat.
The Safety Check feature will be released soon to Android, iOS and desktop devices.
