Facebook activates ‘safety check’ for Nigeria
Social network accused of double standard after attacks in Paris, Beirut
Facebook has activated its “safetycheck” feature after a suicide bombing killed at least 34 people at a market in Nigeria on Tuesday evening, the first of several deadly attacks to strike the country in the past 24 hours. The feature enables Facebook users to alert friends and family members on the social media website that they are safe in the case of violent events.
Facebook was accused of having a double standard last week when it activated the safety feature after the Paris attacks, but did not when deadly bombings struck Beirut a day earlier. In Nigeria, two female suicide bombers killed 15 people when they blew themselves up at the entrance to a cellphone market in an attack in Kano on Wednesday, Agence France-Presse reported.
Tuesday’s attack, at a market in Yalo, in northeastern Nigeria, killed 34 people and injured 80 others, The Associated Press said.
Local officials blamed the violence on Boko Haram, an extremist group operating in Nigeria and neighbouring countries. The group’s six-year insurgency has killed 20,000 people and caused 2.3 million to flee their homes, The Associated Press reported. “After the Paris attacks last week, we made the decision to use Safety Check for more tragic events like this going forward,” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement posted on his page.
“We’re now working quickly to develop criteria for the new policy and determine when and how this service can be most useful. “Every member of our community spreads empathy and understanding on a daily basis. We are all connecting the world together. And, if we all do our part, then one day, there may no longer be attacks like this,” Zuckerberg said in the statement.
While people welcomed Facebook’s decision on Wednesday, others said it didn’t go far enough.
“So will Facebook be adding a Nigerian flag now?” one Twitter user commented, referring to the French flag feature Facebook made available last week.