Facebook adds missing child alerts to news feed

Facebook has launched a new initiative to help find missing children by pushing Amber Alerts into the news feeds of its users.

The feature will debut in the US, where Facebook has around 185-million users. The social network has had special pages for Amber Alerts with notifications issued when a child goes missing since 2011. but the new system will automatically target people who are near the search area, sending them a post about the missing child, photographs included. The alerts will appear both on desktop and mobile phones.

The new system is named after Amber Hagerman, who was kidnapped and killed at 19 years ago at age nine while riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas. Broadcasters teamed with local police to enlist the public’s help in finding abducted or missing children. And now Facebook wants to team with its users in finding missing children.

Facebook developed the program in partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).

“When a child goes missing, the most important thing is getting out the relevant information, the correct information, to the right people at the right time,” Emily Vacher, Facebook head of global safety, told USA Today.

“This a game changer,” NCMEC founder John Walsh, host of CNN’s The Hunt, said in an interview. “Facebook is the 700-pound gorilla. It will put information about missing children into the hands of Facebook users immediately.”

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Buttons on the alert will allow Facebook users to share the information with their Facebook friends. And once the users have received the alert, they will be able to get additional information by clicking “learn more” or share the post on their timelines. The “learn more” option will also connect users to the NCMEC missing child poster and the most updated information.

“If you see an Amber Alert delivered, it means you are actually in a position to be able to help,” said Vacher.

Users will not have to sign up for the service to receive these alerts, but it doesn’t mean they’ll be swarmed with them. According to Vacher, a person will typically see one or two alerts per year. It is not clear how these alerts will be regulated.

Vacher, who spent more than a decade as an FBI agent and specialized in child abduction and exploitation cases, said the first hours after an abduction are often the most critical because the abductor is more likely to be out in public and has not had time to hide the child.

“It’s people in the community who see things and share things,” Vacher said. “I like to think about this as the world’s largest community watch. It’s giving the people in the community the tools they need to find a missing child.”