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Here's why Facebook activated its Safety Check for Paris but not Beirut
"It...seems clear to me that to the world, my people's deaths in Beirut do not matter as much as my other people’s deaths in Paris," Lebanese blogger Joey Ayoub wrote Saturday, expressing a sentiment shared by many, Al Jazeera reports.
Ayoub cited Facebook as part of the discrepancy he sees. After the Paris attacks, the social network implemented its Safety Check feature, which gave users in Paris a quick, easy way to tell friends they were safe. However, no such option existed for people in Beirut.
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Before Friday, Facebook had only ever used this feature for natural disasters, starting with Tokyo's 2011 tsunami. Here's Alex Schultz, Facebook's vice president for growth, explaining why the company decided to deploy Safety Check for Paris:
We chose to activate Safety Check in Paris because we observed a lot of activity on Facebook as the events were unfolding. In the middle of a complex, uncertain situation affecting many people, Facebook became a place where people were sharing information and looking to understand the condition of their loved ones. We talked with our employees on the ground, who felt that there was still a need that we could fill. So we made the decision to try something we've never done before: activating Safety Check for something other than a natural disaster. There has to be a first time for trying something new, even in complex and sensitive times, and for us that was Paris. [Facebook Safety]
That explanation, which you can read in full here, may or may not satisfy those who have loved ones in Beirut. Also, Safety Check isn't the only perceived double standard on Facebook getting attention. Users can change their Facebook profile pictures to show solidarity with Paris, but there was no equivalent option for Beirut.
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Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.
