Facebook CEO On Safety Check Controversy: We Care About All People Equally

Following the dreadful terrorist attack in Paris, Facebook is doing its bit to ensure that people can track and know the safety of their near and dear ones in such difficult times.

Facebook enabled its “Safety Check” tool on Friday, which helps people let their friends and family know that they are safe, Business Insider reported. Over 4.1 million people have used it reportedly. The feature enables a user to:

• Let friends and family know he/she is safe
• Check on others in the affected area
• Mark his/her friends as safe

“Communication is critical in moments of crisis, both for the people affected and for those far away who are anxious for news. People already turn to Facebook to check on loved ones and get updates during times like this and we created Safety Check to make these connections even easier”, said Alex Schultz, Vice President of Growth at Facebook.

However, while the feature was activated for Paris, the same wasn’t done for Beirut which also faced bombings last week that reportedly killed 44 people.

Responding to the matter, CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in his post, “Many people have rightfully asked why we turned on Safety Check for Paris but not for bombings in Beirut and other places.

Until yesterday, our policy was only to activate Safety Check for natural disasters. We just changed this and now plan to activate Safety Check for more human disasters going forward as well.

Thank you to everyone who has reached out with questions and concerns about this. You are right that there are many other important conflicts in the world.

We care about all people equally, and we will work hard to help people suffering in as many of these situations as we can.”