Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday night that Facebook had activated its Safety Check feature in Nigeria after a market bombing killed dozens.
Zuckerberg’s announcement came after the platform faced criticism for turning on the Safety Check feature for the Paris terror attacks, but not for other tragedies like the suicide attacks the day before in Beirut. Facebook said over the weekend that Paris was the first time it deployed the feature in a human disaster.
“After the Paris attacks last week, we made the decision to use Safety Check for more tragic events like this going forward,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We’re now working quickly to develop criteria for the new policy and determine when and how this service can be most useful.”
Safety Check launched in its first iteration during the 2011 Tokyo tsunami and nuclear disaster. The feature has been launched in many other natural disasters, such as the Nepal earthquake.
The activation of Safety Check Tuesday night signals that Facebook is following through on its commitment to provide this service more.
“Unfortunately, these kinds of events are all too common, so I won’t post about all of them,” Zuckerberg wrote. “A loss of human life anywhere is a tragedy, and we’re committed to doing our part to help people in more of these situations.”
