Since its launch during the 2011 tsunami mayhem of Japan, Facebook’s safety check feature has made some commendable advancements. It allows you to know the status of your close acquaintances during a natural disasters. The feature was expanded and a special “Safety Check” feature built for Parisians in 2015.
Therefore, in situations of a natural calamity or some unprecedented terrorist attack, these features are of a huge importance. But from now on, Facebook will not just update you with such incidents, but actually allow you to do something for the affected community or people.
If you remember, last November Facebook unveiled a new tool named “Community Help” whose purpose was to create a common ground where people in need could ask for help and receive it from people willing to offer it. Today, the Community Help tool has been publicaly launched as a part of Facebook’s Safety Check feature.
The updates will be rolling out in Australia, Canada, India, Saudi Arabia and U.S. before hitting the rest of the world. This means that, beginning today, every time their is a disaster and Safety Check is activated, the Community Help feature, which is a consolidation of all the old relief methods, would also be evoked.
So, the people affected from a disaster could now inform loved ones about their safety via Safety Check while others, perfectly safe, could find ways for providing help and assistance to the ones who are affected. Community Service allows you providing aids across eleven different categories such as shelter, equipment, water, pet supplies, transportation, toiletries and others.
However, offers and inquiries related to the disaster will have to be made within Safety Check itself. Which means if you make a Facebook post telling that you can provide certain helps, it will not be counted as a Community Help. Also, based on your geographical location you may receive notification for checking the Safety Check option.
In case you happen to face a particular condition and need some sort of assistance, you may browse through the various stuffs people have to offer, where the category with most number of entries will rise up in the stack. As you glance through various sections, Facebook will inform you about the nearest neighbor offering that assistance- a way to ensure maximum safety for the users. Other safety measures include restricting the contributions of people to above 18 yrs of age, reporting suspicious posts, providing a general education to the users, and not displaying ones exact location.
Also, if you get stranded or happen to face some unwelcome incident or something even worse, you may request for assistance via Community Help. And if you are willing to help someone in similar conditions, you may directly post to him/her with all you have to offer through the service.
