Facebook has its safety feature that always popped up whenever there is an accident, terrorist attack, natural disaster or any other critical moment. Safety feature allows Facebook users to mark them safe and let their close one’s know that they are safe and sound, there is no need to worry about them or vice versa.
Facebook made a big Safety check blunder few days back in Bangkok, Facebook’s safety feature sparked mass confusion and fear recently in Thailand’s city Bangkok that there had been an “explosion” in city on Tuesday, sparking a big mixed panic and shock like situation for people. Reality is far far away from what Facebook claimed it to be, there was no bombing, no terror attack or some industrial explosion in city.
Exactly what happened was there was a alarm raised in Thailand’s capital that started asked users in Bangkok to mark them safe and that alarm was about an explosion in city which was confirmed by many multiple sources. Most of people got confused and Journalists were not able to find any information about any explosion or terrorist attack or that any event of such intensity took place and it took one whole day to be clear that there was no such event has taken place as claimed it did, while keeping that in mind that last year city had major explosion and amid those previous memories, panic situation was created for residents and world.
Police also confirmed that there was no such explosion and anything that has happened, people should remain calm and continue their activities.Bangkok police chief Sanit Mahathavorn said:“We confirmed that there is no bomb threat in Bangkok. We have measures to [ensure] security for people, especially tourists,”
No one has any idea what made Facebook to create such false alarm and create mass confusion for people in that city. Still not clear why Facebook feature got activated and social media platform was used already there is a perception that social media is full of lies and human propaganda and repute as such has created problems for many countries and its people. A part from everything that happened Facebook has defended their safety feature and claimed it worked as it was designed to do so.Facebook Spokesperson Said:“Safety Check was activated yesterday in Thailand following an explosion. As with all Safety Check activations, Facebook relies on a trusted third party to first confirm the incident,”
This shows that alerts are failure for AI system to confirm or judge what really that there is need to create big news about that or not while that alert was active for nearly 10 hours creating confusions, according to BBC there just some protestors throwing fire crackers on Government building that day, there was one article on website bangkokinformer.com that showed last year bombing video and might had been basis for triggering Facebook safety feature while that site was in maintenance mode.
Social media specially Facebook is in long criticism for hoax and fake news spreading using its platform to bring governments down. Events that generated mass protests were driven by movements who used social media as their source to move people out and carry out protests irrespective of knowing that content used to move people was fake or real, fake and false news on Facebook had already affected people and their views on certain personalities creating anger and hate just by some hoax news coming out of that platform.
Facebook has said they will start applying warning labels to articles that are known to be false that have seemingly been published with the intent to trick people.
