Facebook Apologizes For Safety Check Bug

Facebook has stepped forward to issue an apology concerning a bug that it discovered in its Safety Check alert system. This came after such an alert system dispatched notifications falsely to check if folks were all right after the deadly Easter Sunday suicide bombing in Lahore, Pakistan. While it works well in theory, many of those who received such notifications were far away from the scene of the attack – including in Europe, the US, and other parts of India and Asia.

Facebook’s statement mentioned, “We hope the people in the area of the bombing find Safety Check a useful and helpful way to let their friends and family know they are okay. Unfortunately, many people not affected by the crisis received a notification asking if they were okay. This kind of bug is counter to our intent. We worked quickly to resolve the issue and we apologize to anyone who mistakenly received the notification.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did say the following as he launched the Safety Check in October a couple of years back, citing it “as our way of helping our community during natural disasters” with the idea of providing users with “an easy and simple way to say you’re safe and check on all your friends and family in one place.”

Edwin Kee
Categories: Computers
Tags: bug, Facebook