Facebook is expanding its policy on when they launch their Safety Check tool after complaints that it was used after the Paris attacks, but not for other tragedies like Beirut.
“Many people have rightfully asked why we turned on Safety Check for Paris but not for bombings in Beirut and other places,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
He explained that their policy for Safety Check before Paris was to only use the tool for natural disasters.
Safety Check was created after the Japan Tsunami and nuclear disaster in 2011. Before Paris, the tool was only used for five disasters: after the earthquakes in Afghanistan, Chile and Nepal as well as Tropical Cyclone Pam in the South Pacific and Typhoon Ruby in the Philippines.
A pair of suicide bombings struck southern Beirut a day before the Paris attacks, killing 43 people and injuring 239, according to Lebanese officials and media.
In Paris, at least 129 people were killed and 352 wounded.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for both the attacks in Paris and Beirut.
“You are right that there are many other important conflicts in the world,” Zuckerberg said.
Facebook said that 24 hours after activating Safety Check for Paris, 4.1 million people marked themselves as safe and 360 million people received notifications from those people.
