Apart from natural disasters, Amber Alerts are more often used when there is a missing or abducted child in the area. On Tuesday, social-networking giant Facebook announced that it had teamed up with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to deliver Amber Alerts on user's news feeds. Zuckerberg and co. are hoping that the power of its social network will make folks more aware of missing children within a given region.
When a child goes missing and a person is within a given area, an Amber Alert for the child will show up on Facebook news feeds. These alerts include a picture and information about the missing child, as well as the ability to share the report so that more users become aware.
“When local or state police determine that a case qualifies for an AMBER Alert, the alert is issued by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and distributed through the Facebook system with any available information, including a photograph of the missing child, a license plate number, the name and description of the child and suspected abductor,” wrote the company in explaining how the system works," writes Facebook in a blog post.
Since its launch in 1997, more than 725 recorded cases of missing children have been resolved as a direct result of Amber Alerts. Though our phones already issue these alerts, spreading more awareness of missing children can obviously do more good than bad.
