Online outcry pushes Facebook to activate ‘safety check’ after Nigeria bombings

Following heavy online criticism for double standards, Facebook activated its ‘safety check’ feature in Nigeria, where two terrorist attacks took the lives of nearly 50 people in two days. The feature was activated earlier during the deadly Paris attacks.

“We’ve activated Safety Check again after the bombing in Nigeria this evening,” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote on his account on Wednesday.

“After the Paris attacks last week, we made the decision to use Safety Check for more tragic events like this going forward. We’re now working quickly to develop criteria for the new policy and determine when and how this service can be most useful,” he added.

The feature was turned on in Nigeria after Facebook was heavily criticized on the web for activating it during the attacks in Paris on Friday, but not during the deadly bomb blasts in the Lebanese capital of Beirut just a day earlier.

READ MORE: 32 dead, 80 injured in Nigeria market blast

The ‘safety check’ feature allows Facebook users to ‘check-in,’ thus informing their family and friends that they’re safe. It was initially designed to be used during natural disasters.

Meanwhile, there was more violence in Nigeria on Wednesday as two large explosions triggered by suicide bombers killed 12 people and wounded 66 at a mobile phone market in the northern city of Kano.

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