Release The feature was developed by Facebook engineers, inspired by people's use of social media to connect with friends and family in the wake of the
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Originally named the Disaster Message Board, it was renamed to Safety Check prior to release. Its first major deployment was on Saturday, April 25, 2015, in the wake of the
April 2015 Nepal earthquake. The tool was deployed again in the wake of the
May 2015 Nepal earthquake, during Pacific
Hurricane Patricia in October 2015, and during the
November 2015 Paris attacks, the latter being the first time the tool was used in response to a non-natural disaster. On March 22, 2016, during reports of
explosions at an airport and train station in Brussels, the feature was turned on again, but there was a delay in turning it on after it was revealed it was a suicide bomber attack. On June 2, 2016, Facebook announced that it would start experimenting with community-activated Safety Checks. With the new system, Safety Check would be activated based on combination of a certain number of people posting about a particular crisis plus an alert from one of Facebook's third-party sources. Users would also be able to share and spread the word about the Safety Check once it was activated. Facebook hoped the changes would lead to more consistent, frequent, and streamlined deployments around the world. On February 8, 2017, Facebook introduced a Community Help feature to the Safety Check crisis response tool. It allows users to search through categorized posts, offer local assistance, and connect with providers over Facebook Messenger. In June 2017, Facebook announced several updates to Safety Check, including the Community Help feature coming to desktops. It was also made possible for users to start fundraisers from within Safety Check.
Deployment in the context of the Nepal earthquake On Saturday, April 25, 2015, an
earthquake struck Nepal, with an estimated loss of a few thousand lives. Within a few hours of the earthquake hitting, Facebook had activated Safety Check in the region. It identified users as possibly being in the affected area by their current city as listed on their profile, as well as the place from which they had most recently accessed Facebook. The desktop version of Safety Check also provided a brief synopsis of the event and emergency contact numbers. The tool was deployed again in the wake of the
May 2015 Nepal earthquake, and received attention when some people outside the affected area were reported by Facebook as marked safe. This was the first time Facebook activated the feature for a violent attack (or any non-natural disaster), mentioning that the policy for activation and the product itself is an ongoing work in progress.
Other deployments ==Reception==