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I lived through a major natural disaster that left me an evacuee for months. Facebook's safety check is the only reason I haven't killed my account and I've sai

I lived through a major natural disaster that left me an evacuee for months. Facebook's safety check is the only reason I haven't killed my account and I've said this before in prior comments here on Hacker News. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14412146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14412146 Thank god the author hasn't lived through an event where everybody you know is affected by the event. The ability to say "I'm okay", say it once, and have everybody you know on FB see it is a huge stress reducer. It cuts back on the number of "are you okay?" messages you receive during the event when you may not have a lot of battery or a lot of spare brain to dedicate to answering lots of bullshit inquiries. If he's feeling stressed out because of FB opening the "I'm okay" service in that small area for that catastrophic fire, he's being a self centered jerk. I guarantee that FBs service is helping some poor soul mixed up in that mess. Edit: The Facebook safety check feature is not unique to Facebook. In many ways it mimics Japan's disaster message board feature. Every teleco in Japan offers this service: https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/info/disaster/disaster_board/ https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/info/disaster/disaster_b... I really think the author has lived too lucky a life in a place that has not suffered overmuch from disasters. He can't see beyond his own narrow vision.

bogomipz 9y ago
>"Thank god the author hasn't lived through an event where everybody you know is affected by the event." How do you know they haven't? Just because you have and feel one way doesn't mean they haven't. >"If he's feeling stressed out because of FB opening the "I'm okay" service in that small area for that catastrophic fire," I'm not sure I would consider 6 miles a 'small area.'
- rabboRubble 9y ago
  > How do you know they haven't? Just because you have and feel one way doesn't mean they haven't. Point taken. That said, his entire essay reads to me as a man unaffected by hardship. > I'm not sure I would consider 6 miles a 'small area.' Point taken. That said, let's compare the area affected in New York City on 9/11 to the London apartment fire. WTC's disaster would have benefited from FB's safety check feature. That day/evening I manually called (a lot) of people based on their work address in my contact list. Everybody checked out okay. Some days later, I find out a associate was at a Risk Waters risk conference in the Windows of the World restaurant. He died. Because the conference attendance was (of course) handwritten and only in the building, nobody knew who was there and who wasn't. Had FB's safety check feature been around in those days, I think that particular situation would not have been so chaotic for the families.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    I get what you're saying, and I don't disagree. But destruction of the World Trade Center really doesn't compare to a single structure fire, even in a large structure. They're not even in the same ballpark.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    >"Had FB's safety check feature been around in those days, I think that particular situation would not have been so chaotic for the families." Would it have helped the families of first the first responders like NYFD/NYPD/EMTs? Are first responders supposed to take time to "check in" on FB? Would it have been any less chaotic for their families? And honestly I find it really disturbing to compare tragedies, especially so in the context of their value to a FB feature.
    - rabboRubble 9y ago
      I was comparing geographic size, the 6 miles referenced by the poster above me. Both events were in a small geographic area. I guess I feel I have the right to make the comparison. I wasn't there in NYC, but I had "some skin in the game" on 9/11 so to speak. From that experience, and from later ones, I can put myself into the shoes of somebody wondering if their loved one was mixed up in the London fire. To them, it doesn't matter that the fire affected only one apartment building in London.
      - 3ygun 9y ago
        rabboRubble To start off I understand your point that the Safety Check feature can be valuable. Japan's typhoon system is fantastic example you brought up where the entire population of a city needs to, after the incident, notate their safety. However, this is vastly different than the case being discussed of the London fire. In the London fire a small minority, ~500 people, results in a 6 miles notification (other comments said ~9 million people). As stated this kind of notification provides very little value. And instead provides negative value by switching peoples perceived safety ("I think my mother is safe sleeping currently") to a "required" opt-in safety check ("Well she hasn't said anything...so is she?"). This difference is my problem with the Safety Check system and, I believe, the authors. If there is an event where my safety is indeed in a majority questionable state (Typhoon takes out my town) then prompt me with a check #ThankYou. If there was an event which doesn't swing to a majority question then leave it to the individual case. 2 side notes: 1. Why do I personally take issue? Well, I was a student during the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Ohio_State_University_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Ohio_State_University_att... and felt "forced" to provide my answer to the Safety Check as I know my one crazy aunt would go loony if I didn't. In no way did the event warrant this switch from perceived safety to opt-in safety (it was 13 students hurt of >50,000). 2. As other commenters have noted "With great power, comes great responsibility!". If they're going to deploy this technology make sure it provides value and effects, changes safety to opt-in, for the smallest possible subset. Additionally, as you pointed out in your original post allow individuals to add themselves to the Safety Check list if you are getting spammed with messages. Sorry for the long post but, like the author, I was very taken aback when I first encountered this feature on Facebook. While I understand the good intentions. Personally, it fell into the area of prompting a world where we need that instant knowledge, text back, response, etc. which frankly isn't that healthy...
- King-Aaron 9y ago
  > I'm not sure I would consider 6 miles a 'small area.' If you're like me, living in Australia... 6 miles is considerably tiny :P
  - Cyph0n 9y ago
    In the context of the London fire, it's definitely not a small area. A similar fire in, say, Sydney wouldn't magically make a 6 mile radius "tiny".
    - seanp2k2 9y ago
      This. It seems pretty irresponsible for Facebook to be running this out in the open with an algorithm which is clearly not doing very well. It should have human approval for each "safety check" event and use that to tune the algos until they're VERY confident that it's doing the right thing. I'm guessing that the radius is so large in order to catch people who might have gone / been in the area. I do wonder if they even have enough tracking / loc data to ensure that they'd pick up a useful % of affected individuals. It seems like they went for "cast a wide net", but in this case it has quickly-diminishing returns.
- wastedhours 9y ago
  Proximity at the time of the event isn't always a good indicator either way, I live a very short walk from the attack last weekend and am usually in that location around those times regularly, but that day was quite a few miles away - there was still value in me checking myself as safe even if I wasn't physically there. Needs to be some blend of proximity at that time/frequency of visit. Facebook probably stores all of this in any case, so a bit more tweaking on their part will make it easier to deal with.
raleighm 9y ago
I've benefited from those services in Japan, including during 3/11 disaster. They are deployed judiciously and at an appropriate scope. One never gets the sense that commercial motivation has anything to do with the alerts. Same can't be said of Facebook's feature as far as I can tell.
- rabboRubble 9y ago
  I'm not certain, but maybe the disaster boards are mandated by Japan's teleco law? IDK... I do recollect that the FB safety check was launched, in large part, because of the 3/11 disaster. Maybe for commercial reasons, but I do recall companies doing whatever they could to help the people of Japan at the time. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/10/introducing-safety-check/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/10/introducing-safety-chec...
jdietrich 9y ago
About 500 people were directly endangered by this incident. The Safety Check alert seems to extend well beyond Greater London, so at least 9 million people. That gives us an approximate false positive rate of 99.995%. Is that reasonable or proportionate? Does it actually provide useful information? Is it likely to quell unfounded fears and provide genuine reassurance? As tragic as this incident was, it affected a single building. Safety Check might be a useful feature in some very specific circumstances, but it's abundantly clear that Facebook is using it inappropriately. People hundreds of miles from the incident are having their profiles show "not marked as safe". The article makes a quite reasonable point - that Safety Check strongly implies that "not safe" is the default, contrary to long-established social norms. Unless used very carefully, this feature could cause completely unnecessary fear; it is easy to envision a scenario where Safety Check could prompt a dangerous mass panic. If this is a genuine public safety feature, if Facebook really are using Safety Check out of concern for their users welfare, then they should fully accept the concomitant responsibility. They should expend real resources to liaise with the relevant agencies and ensure that Safety Check is deployed only when appropriate, that it is accurately targeted and that it helps rather than hinders relief efforts. If Facebook wish to rely on their usual excuses of "move fast and break stuff" and "it's not our fault, it's the algorithm", then we should see Safety Check in those terms - as a careless and cynical effort to boost engagement metrics.
- btown 9y ago
  I have to disagree. "Not safe" became the default as soon as the concept of social media hit; if there's the slightest chance you may have been affected by an incident, anyone who would check your social postings to see if there was any "word from you" would assume the worst in the absence of such a posting. The human mind is evolved for both empathy and "what-if" scenarios, but not for probability; it will snap to "what if my loved one was in that apartment because they were in the country" rather than "it is highly improbable." Given that, Safety Check actually dampens those emotions on a societal scale, by making it easier and more natural for each potentially-endangered poster to assuage the fears of people in their circles.
  - jfoutz 9y ago
imartin2k 9y ago
I have not lived through a major catastrophe but I agree with you that in such a case, this feature can be very important. However, the problem is its application to a much wider spectrum of incidents. So the chance of lives saved is being drastically reduced, while the collateral damage is massive.
jimmywanger 9y ago
No, what the author is trying to say is that it's up to the individual to assuage fears or confirm problems. We all have those extremely nervous and neurotic friends who jump to conclusions about things that would have no affect on you whatsoever. I've had people just today ask me if I was ok based on the fact that the UPS shootings occurred in San Francisco and I'm currently in the Bay Area. Now with Facebook able to unilaterally decide that I might have been affected, so they send out a systemwide alert, that confirms or creates everybody's worst fears. If I am affected, I'll reach out when I'm able to. If I'm not affected, why waste cycles calming people down that I didn't alert?
sboselli 9y ago
So you're extrapolating your own personal successful experience with every case and every possible setting, while also showing quite a bit of prejudice towards the author. He does make valid points, and furthermore, as others have said, a 6 mile radius in a city like London covers hundreds of thousands of people. I can and would argue until infinity that there is absolutely no need whatsoever for a 6 mile radius warning in the event of 1 (one) single building on fire. Weather you like it or not or agree with FB or not, this was a completely localized event of minimal or no impact (other than maybe traffic for a couple of blocks??) to such an area. The same is clearly not true for events of other nature (natural disasters, nuclear, maybe manhunts but I already find that one questionable.., etc.) That is to say, the service is not evil or a bad idea. The criticism is more on the execution and the unnecessary, rather opportunistic, abuse of such an event. If the author is indeed biased because he did not live through such an event, then you are most definitely also biased because you did live through one; and you certainly seem to be not only receptive and even defensive, but apparently offended. This was more of yet another case of attention grabbing, manipulative and opportunistic behaviour with a good samaritan cover. Make no mistake: salesmen, media (in all formats), advertisers, politicians and companies of all sorts have been doing this for centuries. I understand you lived through an instance where this helped, but a single building on fire does not equal a natural disaster. The scale and impact is just very different, there is no arguing that. It's pretty simple actually: there is (should be) an appropriate level of response and a corresponding correct setting. In this particular case, it was way way off. Don't let your personal experience prevent you from recognizing that, for it's the same thing you accuse him of. And again, even acknowledging that, you may still not agree that it was done with an opportunistic intention; and that's fine, but it shouldn't prevent you or anyone from openly discussing where the correct boundaries are.
- marksomnian 9y ago
  The GP posted a valid point based on their personal experiences. I don't see the need for any personal attacks or casting of aspersions (I definitely don't see the need for the "salesmen, media, advertisers, politicians and companies" comment). You have a valid point that adds to the discussion, but the ad hominems make it difficult to get to the substance of it.
tr1ck5t3r 9y ago
I wonder where that idea came from!
hedora 9y ago
Why not post something to your timeline or update your status? Presumably that would have worked just as well. (Honest question; I don't use FB, and this feature seems about as useful as being woken up by a 2AM Amber Alert on my cell phone here in the US)
- ClassyJacket 9y ago
  Because "the algorithm" might decide your family don't get to see that update. Facebook is no point chronological, nor does it show everything your friends post. They pick and choose.
  - mrpopo 9y ago
    If people don't care about you enough to check your timeline if they think you are endangered, is there a point to letting them know you're safe? As OP, I lived through a major natural disaster, and I posted that I was safe on my timeline, and most of my friends that were connected with the disaster did.
DanielBMarkham 9y ago
In the last couple of weeks, I have been notified on Facebook by friends about: - An abduction that involved the dad taking the kids against the mother's will for a few days -- three states away - A triple murder-suicide -- 300 miles away - A woman arrested for being cruel to her animals, complete with pictures -- in a city 150 miles away And this is with my blocks as high as I can make them. I am constantly being bombarded by news that affects a very small segment of the population in communities far distant from the one I live in. This does not provide any sort of public service to me. Emotional-laden content such as this and the "I'm safe" buttons exist for Facebook's purposes far, far more than they do for the user's purposes. This is the way of the new PC crowd: do something that benefits you but can be spun as a kindness to the community. Then shout down anybody who points out that you're only acting in your self interest. I do not doubt that this has a benefit for that small number of people actually trapped in a large-scale natural disaster (Although I would wonder what, exactly, in a world of billions of people constitutes "large scale"?) But if you waste five minutes of ten million people's lives with a notification like this? That's 5 minutes X 10 million = more than 2,200 man-years. It's the equivalent of 30 people's lives simply to make a few people feel better. In addition, because of the numbers involved, overall it actually creates much more stress than it reduces. There is a not-insignificant healthcare cost associated with things like this. The old-time capitalist pigs were easy to understand: they made stuff in order to make money. The new guys on the block are full of a lot more bullshit than the older guys -- and people who aren't paying attention are easily suckered into the schpiel and the concomitant pathos.
- mcguire 9y ago
  Why do you use Facebook?
jondubois 9y ago
You're an outlier. These accidents never happen. Facebook is just spreading fear to make people more docile and suggestible. It's just like terrorist attacks and winning the lottery. Sure, these things happen but they don't happen to you. Facebook and the media love to pick out single unusual cases to make the world seem smaller and more dangerous than it is. The world is massive, there are more people in it and more things happening than anyone can really appreciate. While that one tower was burning in London there were probably hundreds of other buildings of the same size burning in other places around the world at the same time. Why does FB focus so much on that one small incident at the expense of all other incidents which actually add up to more? Cold statistics are just not as interesting as emotionally-charged outlier stories.
- jamesrcole 9y ago
  > While that one tower was burning in London there were probably hundreds of other buildings of the same size burning in other places around the world at the same time Hundreds sounds like a massive overestimation to me. You're saying that every single day there are hundreds of comparable building fires around the world. If we conservatively take "hundreds" to be 200, that would be 200*365 every year. That's 73000 every year!
  - jondubois 9y ago
    Well according to this source: http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/fires-by-property-type/residential/home-structure-fires http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-re..., there were 358K+ home fires in the US alone between 2010 and 2014 and I'm guessing that US has pretty good fire safety standards compared to the rest of the world (and this doesn't even include buildings which are not homes). 73K per year doesn't seem so crazy anymore.
    - jamesrcole 9y ago
      Except that the comment I was replying to was taking specifically about buildings of the same size as the London one - and clearly taking about fires of a comparable magnitude to the London one (otherwise their comparison would have been meaningless). Home fires are irrelevant to that.
RichardHeart 9y ago
Surely putting facebook in charge of public safety announcements, instead of say, emergency services, is a terrible idea.
intoverflow2 9y ago
> a major natural disaster that left me an evacuee for months Honestly I'd have thought this situation would call for a lot more than an "I'm ok" checkbox. Something like the recent London terror attacks (disaster in a public place, not just one specific building) seems a decent fit for I'm ok but a disaster where you lose your home seems like the opposite of ok.
pc86 9y ago
TIL asking someone you know who has been through a disaster if they are okay is a "bullshit inquiry."
- mcguire 9y ago
  Once upon a time, I had to listen to a friend complain about television tornado coverage preempting his favorite TV show. At the same time he was attempting to watch his show, I was at work dealing with a flooded basement lab and wondering if my home, which was close to the path of the storm, was still standing. Some people are very self-centered.
  - thatwebdude 9y ago
    Some people are numbed by severe weather coverage. In the Midwest, in my experience, people just aren't phased by tornadoes because they'd be hiding in their basement for 10 months out of the year.
- rabboRubble 9y ago
  Agreed. "Bullshit inquiries" was probably not the best way to describe people caring enough to ask. At the time I found myself repeating the same thing over and over and over again, followed by telling people the bright spot in the whole situation "I have plenty of emergency food and water." Wash rinse repeat. "I have plenty of emergency food and water." Wash rinse repeat. "I have plenty of emergency food and water." Wash rinse repeat. Followed by an adrenaline crash. Followed by all the little muscles around my knees and spine giving up. For the next months, sleeping on other people's guest beds, these little muscle pulls ached. I was mentally drained and physically in low-moderate pain for about a year afterward. My strong recommendation for everybody's emergency supply kit: pack a jumbo bottle of ibuprofen. Being homeless physically hurts.
tzakrajs 9y ago
Confirmation bias.

bogomipz 9y ago

>"Thank god the author hasn't lived through an event where everybody you know is affected by the event." How do you know they haven't? Just because you have and feel one way doesn't mean they haven't. >"If he's feeling stressed out because of FB opening the "I'm okay" service in that small area for that catastrophic fire," I'm not sure I would consider 6 miles a 'small area.'

rabboRubble 9y ago
> How do you know they haven't? Just because you have and feel one way doesn't mean they haven't. Point taken. That said, his entire essay reads to me as a man unaffected by hardship. > I'm not sure I would consider 6 miles a 'small area.' Point taken. That said, let's compare the area affected in New York City on 9/11 to the London apartment fire. WTC's disaster would have benefited from FB's safety check feature. That day/evening I manually called (a lot) of people based on their work address in my contact list. Everybody checked out okay. Some days later, I find out a associate was at a Risk Waters risk conference in the Windows of the World restaurant. He died. Because the conference attendance was (of course) handwritten and only in the building, nobody knew who was there and who wasn't. Had FB's safety check feature been around in those days, I think that particular situation would not have been so chaotic for the families.
- throwanem 9y ago
  I get what you're saying, and I don't disagree. But destruction of the World Trade Center really doesn't compare to a single structure fire, even in a large structure. They're not even in the same ballpark.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >"Had FB's safety check feature been around in those days, I think that particular situation would not have been so chaotic for the families." Would it have helped the families of first the first responders like NYFD/NYPD/EMTs? Are first responders supposed to take time to "check in" on FB? Would it have been any less chaotic for their families? And honestly I find it really disturbing to compare tragedies, especially so in the context of their value to a FB feature.
  - rabboRubble 9y ago
    I was comparing geographic size, the 6 miles referenced by the poster above me. Both events were in a small geographic area. I guess I feel I have the right to make the comparison. I wasn't there in NYC, but I had "some skin in the game" on 9/11 so to speak. From that experience, and from later ones, I can put myself into the shoes of somebody wondering if their loved one was mixed up in the London fire. To them, it doesn't matter that the fire affected only one apartment building in London.
    - 3ygun 9y ago
      rabboRubble To start off I understand your point that the Safety Check feature can be valuable. Japan's typhoon system is fantastic example you brought up where the entire population of a city needs to, after the incident, notate their safety. However, this is vastly different than the case being discussed of the London fire. In the London fire a small minority, ~500 people, results in a 6 miles notification (other comments said ~9 million people). As stated this kind of notification provides very little value. And instead provides negative value by switching peoples perceived safety ("I think my mother is safe sleeping currently") to a "required" opt-in safety check ("Well she hasn't said anything...so is she?"). This difference is my problem with the Safety Check system and, I believe, the authors. If there is an event where my safety is indeed in a majority questionable state (Typhoon takes out my town) then prompt me with a check #ThankYou. If there was an event which doesn't swing to a majority question then leave it to the individual case. 2 side notes: 1. Why do I personally take issue? Well, I was a student during the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Ohio_State_University_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Ohio_State_University_att... and felt "forced" to provide my answer to the Safety Check as I know my one crazy aunt would go loony if I didn't. In no way did the event warrant this switch from perceived safety to opt-in safety (it was 13 students hurt of >50,000). 2. As other commenters have noted "With great power, comes great responsibility!". If they're going to deploy this technology make sure it provides value and effects, changes safety to opt-in, for the smallest possible subset. Additionally, as you pointed out in your original post allow individuals to add themselves to the Safety Check list if you are getting spammed with messages. Sorry for the long post but, like the author, I was very taken aback when I first encountered this feature on Facebook. While I understand the good intentions. Personally, it fell into the area of prompting a world where we need that instant knowledge, text back, response, etc. which frankly isn't that healthy...
King-Aaron 9y ago
> I'm not sure I would consider 6 miles a 'small area.' If you're like me, living in Australia... 6 miles is considerably tiny :P
- Cyph0n 9y ago
  In the context of the London fire, it's definitely not a small area. A similar fire in, say, Sydney wouldn't magically make a 6 mile radius "tiny".
  - seanp2k2 9y ago
    This. It seems pretty irresponsible for Facebook to be running this out in the open with an algorithm which is clearly not doing very well. It should have human approval for each "safety check" event and use that to tune the algos until they're VERY confident that it's doing the right thing. I'm guessing that the radius is so large in order to catch people who might have gone / been in the area. I do wonder if they even have enough tracking / loc data to ensure that they'd pick up a useful % of affected individuals. It seems like they went for "cast a wide net", but in this case it has quickly-diminishing returns.
wastedhours 9y ago
Proximity at the time of the event isn't always a good indicator either way, I live a very short walk from the attack last weekend and am usually in that location around those times regularly, but that day was quite a few miles away - there was still value in me checking myself as safe even if I wasn't physically there. Needs to be some blend of proximity at that time/frequency of visit. Facebook probably stores all of this in any case, so a bit more tweaking on their part will make it easier to deal with.

raleighm 9y ago

I've benefited from those services in Japan, including during 3/11 disaster. They are deployed judiciously and at an appropriate scope. One never gets the sense that commercial motivation has anything to do with the alerts. Same can't be said of Facebook's feature as far as I can tell.

rabboRubble 9y ago
I'm not certain, but maybe the disaster boards are mandated by Japan's teleco law? IDK... I do recollect that the FB safety check was launched, in large part, because of the 3/11 disaster. Maybe for commercial reasons, but I do recall companies doing whatever they could to help the people of Japan at the time. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/10/introducing-safety-check/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/10/introducing-safety-chec...

jdietrich 9y ago

About 500 people were directly endangered by this incident. The Safety Check alert seems to extend well beyond Greater London, so at least 9 million people. That gives us an approximate false positive rate of 99.995%. Is that reasonable or proportionate? Does it actually provide useful information? Is it likely to quell unfounded fears and provide genuine reassurance? As tragic as this incident was, it affected a single building. Safety Check might be a useful feature in some very specific circumstances, but it's abundantly clear that Facebook is using it inappropriately. People hundreds of miles from the incident are having their profiles show "not marked as safe". The article makes a quite reasonable point - that Safety Check strongly implies that "not safe" is the default, contrary to long-established social norms. Unless used very carefully, this feature could cause completely unnecessary fear; it is easy to envision a scenario where Safety Check could prompt a dangerous mass panic. If this is a genuine public safety feature, if Facebook really are using Safety Check out of concern for their users welfare, then they should fully accept the concomitant responsibility. They should expend real resources to liaise with the relevant agencies and ensure that Safety Check is deployed only when appropriate, that it is accurately targeted and that it helps rather than hinders relief efforts. If Facebook wish to rely on their usual excuses of "move fast and break stuff" and "it's not our fault, it's the algorithm", then we should see Safety Check in those terms - as a careless and cynical effort to boost engagement metrics.

btown 9y ago
I have to disagree. "Not safe" became the default as soon as the concept of social media hit; if there's the slightest chance you may have been affected by an incident, anyone who would check your social postings to see if there was any "word from you" would assume the worst in the absence of such a posting. The human mind is evolved for both empathy and "what-if" scenarios, but not for probability; it will snap to "what if my loved one was in that apartment because they were in the country" rather than "it is highly improbable." Given that, Safety Check actually dampens those emotions on a societal scale, by making it easier and more natural for each potentially-endangered poster to assuage the fears of people in their circles.
- jfoutz 9y ago

imartin2k 9y ago

I have not lived through a major catastrophe but I agree with you that in such a case, this feature can be very important. However, the problem is its application to a much wider spectrum of incidents. So the chance of lives saved is being drastically reduced, while the collateral damage is massive.

jimmywanger 9y ago

No, what the author is trying to say is that it's up to the individual to assuage fears or confirm problems. We all have those extremely nervous and neurotic friends who jump to conclusions about things that would have no affect on you whatsoever. I've had people just today ask me if I was ok based on the fact that the UPS shootings occurred in San Francisco and I'm currently in the Bay Area. Now with Facebook able to unilaterally decide that I might have been affected, so they send out a systemwide alert, that confirms or creates everybody's worst fears. If I am affected, I'll reach out when I'm able to. If I'm not affected, why waste cycles calming people down that I didn't alert?

sboselli 9y ago

So you're extrapolating your own personal successful experience with every case and every possible setting, while also showing quite a bit of prejudice towards the author. He does make valid points, and furthermore, as others have said, a 6 mile radius in a city like London covers hundreds of thousands of people. I can and would argue until infinity that there is absolutely no need whatsoever for a 6 mile radius warning in the event of 1 (one) single building on fire. Weather you like it or not or agree with FB or not, this was a completely localized event of minimal or no impact (other than maybe traffic for a couple of blocks??) to such an area. The same is clearly not true for events of other nature (natural disasters, nuclear, maybe manhunts but I already find that one questionable.., etc.) That is to say, the service is not evil or a bad idea. The criticism is more on the execution and the unnecessary, rather opportunistic, abuse of such an event. If the author is indeed biased because he did not live through such an event, then you are most definitely also biased because you did live through one; and you certainly seem to be not only receptive and even defensive, but apparently offended. This was more of yet another case of attention grabbing, manipulative and opportunistic behaviour with a good samaritan cover. Make no mistake: salesmen, media (in all formats), advertisers, politicians and companies of all sorts have been doing this for centuries. I understand you lived through an instance where this helped, but a single building on fire does not equal a natural disaster. The scale and impact is just very different, there is no arguing that. It's pretty simple actually: there is (should be) an appropriate level of response and a corresponding correct setting. In this particular case, it was way way off. Don't let your personal experience prevent you from recognizing that, for it's the same thing you accuse him of. And again, even acknowledging that, you may still not agree that it was done with an opportunistic intention; and that's fine, but it shouldn't prevent you or anyone from openly discussing where the correct boundaries are.

marksomnian 9y ago
The GP posted a valid point based on their personal experiences. I don't see the need for any personal attacks or casting of aspersions (I definitely don't see the need for the "salesmen, media, advertisers, politicians and companies" comment). You have a valid point that adds to the discussion, but the ad hominems make it difficult to get to the substance of it.

tr1ck5t3r 9y ago

I wonder where that idea came from!

hedora 9y ago

Why not post something to your timeline or update your status? Presumably that would have worked just as well. (Honest question; I don't use FB, and this feature seems about as useful as being woken up by a 2AM Amber Alert on my cell phone here in the US)

ClassyJacket 9y ago
Because "the algorithm" might decide your family don't get to see that update. Facebook is no point chronological, nor does it show everything your friends post. They pick and choose.
- mrpopo 9y ago
  If people don't care about you enough to check your timeline if they think you are endangered, is there a point to letting them know you're safe? As OP, I lived through a major natural disaster, and I posted that I was safe on my timeline, and most of my friends that were connected with the disaster did.

DanielBMarkham 9y ago

In the last couple of weeks, I have been notified on Facebook by friends about: - An abduction that involved the dad taking the kids against the mother's will for a few days -- three states away - A triple murder-suicide -- 300 miles away - A woman arrested for being cruel to her animals, complete with pictures -- in a city 150 miles away And this is with my blocks as high as I can make them. I am constantly being bombarded by news that affects a very small segment of the population in communities far distant from the one I live in. This does not provide any sort of public service to me. Emotional-laden content such as this and the "I'm safe" buttons exist for Facebook's purposes far, far more than they do for the user's purposes. This is the way of the new PC crowd: do something that benefits you but can be spun as a kindness to the community. Then shout down anybody who points out that you're only acting in your self interest. I do not doubt that this has a benefit for that small number of people actually trapped in a large-scale natural disaster (Although I would wonder what, exactly, in a world of billions of people constitutes "large scale"?) But if you waste five minutes of ten million people's lives with a notification like this? That's 5 minutes X 10 million = more than 2,200 man-years. It's the equivalent of 30 people's lives simply to make a few people feel better. In addition, because of the numbers involved, overall it actually creates much more stress than it reduces. There is a not-insignificant healthcare cost associated with things like this. The old-time capitalist pigs were easy to understand: they made stuff in order to make money. The new guys on the block are full of a lot more bullshit than the older guys -- and people who aren't paying attention are easily suckered into the schpiel and the concomitant pathos.

mcguire 9y ago
Why do you use Facebook?

jondubois 9y ago

You're an outlier. These accidents never happen. Facebook is just spreading fear to make people more docile and suggestible. It's just like terrorist attacks and winning the lottery. Sure, these things happen but they don't happen to you. Facebook and the media love to pick out single unusual cases to make the world seem smaller and more dangerous than it is. The world is massive, there are more people in it and more things happening than anyone can really appreciate. While that one tower was burning in London there were probably hundreds of other buildings of the same size burning in other places around the world at the same time. Why does FB focus so much on that one small incident at the expense of all other incidents which actually add up to more? Cold statistics are just not as interesting as emotionally-charged outlier stories.

jamesrcole 9y ago
> While that one tower was burning in London there were probably hundreds of other buildings of the same size burning in other places around the world at the same time Hundreds sounds like a massive overestimation to me. You're saying that every single day there are hundreds of comparable building fires around the world. If we conservatively take "hundreds" to be 200, that would be 200*365 every year. That's 73000 every year!
- jondubois 9y ago
  Well according to this source: http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/fires-by-property-type/residential/home-structure-fires http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-re..., there were 358K+ home fires in the US alone between 2010 and 2014 and I'm guessing that US has pretty good fire safety standards compared to the rest of the world (and this doesn't even include buildings which are not homes). 73K per year doesn't seem so crazy anymore.
  - jamesrcole 9y ago
    Except that the comment I was replying to was taking specifically about buildings of the same size as the London one - and clearly taking about fires of a comparable magnitude to the London one (otherwise their comparison would have been meaningless). Home fires are irrelevant to that.

RichardHeart 9y ago

Surely putting facebook in charge of public safety announcements, instead of say, emergency services, is a terrible idea.

intoverflow2 9y ago

> a major natural disaster that left me an evacuee for months Honestly I'd have thought this situation would call for a lot more than an "I'm ok" checkbox. Something like the recent London terror attacks (disaster in a public place, not just one specific building) seems a decent fit for I'm ok but a disaster where you lose your home seems like the opposite of ok.

pc86 9y ago

TIL asking someone you know who has been through a disaster if they are okay is a "bullshit inquiry."

mcguire 9y ago
Once upon a time, I had to listen to a friend complain about television tornado coverage preempting his favorite TV show. At the same time he was attempting to watch his show, I was at work dealing with a flooded basement lab and wondering if my home, which was close to the path of the storm, was still standing. Some people are very self-centered.
- thatwebdude 9y ago
  Some people are numbed by severe weather coverage. In the Midwest, in my experience, people just aren't phased by tornadoes because they'd be hiding in their basement for 10 months out of the year.
rabboRubble 9y ago
Agreed. "Bullshit inquiries" was probably not the best way to describe people caring enough to ask. At the time I found myself repeating the same thing over and over and over again, followed by telling people the bright spot in the whole situation "I have plenty of emergency food and water." Wash rinse repeat. "I have plenty of emergency food and water." Wash rinse repeat. "I have plenty of emergency food and water." Wash rinse repeat. Followed by an adrenaline crash. Followed by all the little muscles around my knees and spine giving up. For the next months, sleeping on other people's guest beds, these little muscle pulls ached. I was mentally drained and physically in low-moderate pain for about a year afterward. My strong recommendation for everybody's emergency supply kit: pack a jumbo bottle of ibuprofen. Being homeless physically hurts.

tzakrajs 9y ago

Confirmation bias.