Mediaboss Marketing

Social networking site Facebook has activated its Safety Check tool amid the onslaught of Typhoon Ruby in the Philippines, and neighboring countries.

According to an article by Naomi Gleit, VP of Product Management; Sharon Zeng, Product Manager; and Peter Cottle, Software Engineer, the Safety Check is a proactive approach to communicating and staying connected after a disaster.

Inspired by the devastating tsunami and earthquake in Japan three years ago, Facebook's engineers "set out to create a simple and easy-to-use tool that allows people to connect with their network of friends and family when it matters most," the article said.

The user can then mark that he is outside the affected area if the location gathered by the software is wrong. If safe, the user can select Im Safe and a notification and News Feed story will be generated with his update. The user's friends can also mark him as safe.

If the user has friends in the area of a natural disaster and the tool has been activated, he will receive a notification about those friends that have marked themselves as safe. Clicking on this notification will take the user to the Safety Check bookmark that will show him a list of their updates.

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Facebook runs Safety Check for Typhoon Ruby