Mark Zuckerberg Responds To Criticism Of FB’s Paris ‘Safety Check’ Bias

Facebook‘s decision to turn on its safety check feature for Paris, where 129 people died on the weekend as a result of the terrorist attacks, and not Beirut, where 43 people died the day before as a result of bombings, has been met with masses of criticism.

It was part of a wider pouring of outrage that the world came together in solidarity for Paris, but not Beirut.

“When my people died on the streets of Beirut on November 12th, world leaders did not rise in condemnation,” wrote Elie Fares, a Lebanese doctor, in a blog post that has since been picked up by the NY Times, Al Jazeera, The Huffington Post, and the BBC.

“There were no statements expressing sympathy with the Lebanese people. There was no global outrage that innocent people whose only fault was being somewhere at the wrong place and time should never have to go that way or that their families should never be broken that way or that someone’s sect or political background should never be a hyphen before feeling horrified at how their corpses burned on cement. Obama did not issue a statement about how their death was a crime against humanity; after all what is humanity but a subjective term delineating the worth of the human meant by it?”

FB chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has now explained that the safety check feature was only turned on for Paris – the first time it’s been used in any situation other than a natural disaster – in response to people already using Facebook to check on loved ones.

“Many people have rightfully asked why we turned on Safety Check for Paris but not for bombings in Beirut and other places.

“Until yesterday, our policy was only to activate Safety Check for natural disasters. We just changed this and now plan to activate Safety Check for more human disasters going forward as well.

“Thank you to everyone who has reached out with questions and concerns about this. You are right that there are many other important conflicts in the world.

“We care about all people equally, and we will work hard to help people suffering in as many of these situations as we can.”

In a longer post on the Facebook Safety page, Alex Schultz, Facebook’s Vice President of Growth, elaborated further.

“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 haring 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 Paris.”