What happens if there is another bomb, after someone has reported as "safe"? Are the "safe" statuses updated somehow, since the state of that person is now unknown?
It's not happened, so I don't know if they already have it in- but it would be incredibly easy to look at the people who were reported as safe and specifically message them to see if they are or not, with a reset and a secondary check.
After all, you've got a perfect list of those who already responded.
I grew up in Belgium, and have family and childhood friends there. I was pleasantly surprised when I got random notifications from Facebook this morning as people I am friends with added themselves to the safety check list - it made it easy for me to quickly know who was OK.
I had the same thought/feeling after the latest Ankara bombing. I didn't even realize a fairly close friend was in Turkey until I got a notification that they were okay. I think it's underappreciated how much smaller the world feels when you see something on the news and nearly immediately know someone affected. It's my hope that this breeds empathy.
Quickly find and connect with friends in the area. Mark them safe if you know that they're OK.
Are you in the affected area?
Yes, let my friends know.
----
Basically if you are in Brussels you let Facebook know you are ok. And if you have friends who knows you're in Brussels, they can check if you are ok. Rather then the poor Brussels person getting lots of messages from people asking if he is ok, they can check once.
Rational or not, family/friends freak out when you are close to a natural disaster or terrorist attack.
I was in Chile during an 8.8 earthquake and assumed no one would worry since the death toll was so low. But everyone at home went nuts, in the two days it took to contact my family my mother had already accepted that I was dead.
They do - I was on the tube a few trains back from one that got hit in London in '07 - I responded to everyone with words to the effect of "of course, don't be irrational".
I just worry that this sort of thing only fans the flames of irrational fears, and we have quite enough irrational thought driving the direction of the world right now.
I used it during the Paris attacks in november, and it indicated to everyone I know that I was safe, without the need for everyone of them to message me. Of course, the close friends and family still called/texted, but for literally everyone else in my facebook friends, it was useful.
I fail to see how that is useful - of course you're safe - out of a city with a population in the millions hundreds died - it makes no more sense to check on your safety due to an event than this than on a daily basis, as you're more likely to have a heart attack in your sleep.
All this does is further warp and distort our idea of what is dangerous in life and what is not.
In the 90s there was an accident at a concert my aunt and uncle were attending. Tens of people died, many more injured. We couldn't reach them for days, had no clue what their condition was. Turned out they had left the concert early, and, this being the 90s, hadn't heard about the accident until they got home (much easier back then to live under a rock with respect to news events). A feature like this would have saved us all a lot of fretting.
While it's true that 99.99% of people in the cities of these various attacks are safe, that doesn't prevent others from worrying about them when these events hit the news. And it's not just for terrorist attacks, they've also applied it to natural disasters (which will impact a lot more people).
I still think we overemphasize the threat of terrorism and it plays directly I to the neocons narrative. I wish we stopped playing their game. If you're worried about someone, reach out to them directly. I can see the value of this in case of a tragedy that affects thousands but not here.
That doesn't obviate the need to communicate with others (whose concern is rational or not). The communication systems after things like this are down because of (according to you and others here) irrational people concerned about those they love and care about. A system like this has applications to any sort of disaster, and one of the primary benefits is in reversing the order of communication. Instead of 10s of people contacting each resident and swamping both the person and the network, the resident can push information out to the global network. They communicate one time (ok, practically this isn't sufficient to communicate their status to everyone and some will still call them or reach out via other channels), and everyone that cares can check on their status.
While it's very important to use tragedy to further your political agenda you should note that neocons don't hold power now yet the government is still "playing their game" with terrorism events.
What are you talking about? The Republicans control Congress, and Obama is a neocon-lite. And as for the upcoming election, Hillary is a full-up neocon and warmonger.
Whatever, it's human nature to want to know your loved ones are OK. If my wife and kids were in the area of an attack, of course I would want to know that they were all right, even if I rationally understood the chances were high that they were fine. In fact, parents just want to make sure their children are alright even if they're in a different country from a disaster, because tragedy reminds us of how fragile life is and makes us want to reach out to the people we love. If you want a tangible benefit, this reduces the load on cell phone lines that used to get totally jammed after a disaster.
Incredible level of insensitivity.
Sadly not every family today, or last time in Paris, is able to say of course my relative is safe.
There is grief, broken lives and broken communities right now.
When there are isolated deaths like traffic accidents, the authorities take pains to notify the next of kin before releasing public details, so you're not seeing the family car on the news wondering if the driver made it. In cases like this, it's all over the news and many people may have an accurate idea of if their loved ones were likely in the affected area. You may call it bullshit, but I've seen a lot of people very relieved to get the news that someone is okay quickly and efficiently like this. It's one of the better things made possible by Facebook.
I've seen advice on twitter to not post photos of the scene, and likewise for media. Imagine if you knew a loved had died by seeing their corpse on the "Breaking News"....
To be fair, the government is asking people to NOT use phones to communicate their current status and rely on social media instead. GSM use in the affected area is almost impossible at this point due to congestion.
I've heard "congestion" a few times. Is it not a standard response to jam cell networks in the area in case additional bombs could be triggered via cell detonator?
Turn off, rather, in fact I heard from friends in Brussels that cell towers in areas with bomb threats had been switched off when there were threats a few months ago.
In general, you may be more likely to die in your daily commute than in a terrorist attack. However, the odds of 'was this person a casualty of this specific event, given that they were likely to be present around the time of the event' is likely much higher than 'was this person a casualty of a random road accident on this particular day'
This. I just looked up the numbers, and approximately 1.5 million people fly in our out of the Brussels airport per month. That's 50,000 per day. If 25 people died at the airport this morning, that's 1:2000 of people who would have traveled through there today. Narrow that down to people who were (or were expected to be) in the airport within 2 hours of the attack, and now it's getting uncomfortably likely.
Facebook is a communication medium for a lot of people. People are going to log into Facebook to communicate about the tragic event regardless of features like this.
The cell phone network is currently suffering DDOS from everyone trying to reach everyone else at the same time, to ensure they are fine. It is a good feature.
Seriously (and thank you for bearding that lion in its den). That having the slightest shred of empathy and self-effacement is considered a negative in some parts of this industry...we deserve us.
Don't you think not having news from someone you love for prolonged time can actually hype the hysteria?
I'd say I'm usually a rational person when those events happen. Yet, every hour that goes by without news from my cousin who works there makes me a little bit more concerned even though I know he and his family are very probably safe.
Working in japan all the big companies feature systems like this. You get a e-mail and a call by a automated system. Then you have to respond with your status and if you can come to work :)
I'm sure Japan has. This is a normal continuity of business protocol, with a cascade down reporting lines. If one fails to respond, cascade to the next layer of reporting down. And have an actual cascade plan in-hand, at home, at work, and on mobile.
All businesses should have one, and they are useful for many reasons. Test it annually or more, depending on business. And have results posted back - who responds, who doesn't.
Facebook is being heavily used by inhabitants in Brussels to communicate right now. I have a friend asking for someone to check on his mother who lives downtown. He can't reach her because the phones systems are completely saturated. He found a neighbor able to go and check on her. For me, being able to log on and see that my friends are OK was helpful beyond description.
And it's still true advice. What you're feeling now is just fear and panic. This is the entire point of a terrorist attack: it's psychological warfare. Make people think they are in grave, imminent danger, to coerce them into some action.
If you were actually more likely to die in a terrorist attack than being shot by a toddler in the USA, it probably wouldn't be a terrorist attack, it'd be something more like... an actual war.
Statistics didn't help them any less than it helps the people accidentally killed by firearms in the US. Those people are dead too. And there are more of them. And it's just as senseless. Honestly wtf.
Using gun deaths in the united states as against global terrorism is a flawed comparison. The US has more gun deaths than the united kingdom but it also has more guns and more people. When you expand the scope of terrorism related deaths to the entire world of course it is low, nobody in iceland has to worry about being bombed but someone in brussles, turkey, iraq or syria might disagree.
I will take accidental gun deaths in the US over terrorism any day. I invite anyone on HN to go stand in northern iraq and I will stand at a shooting range all day.
You're right, accidental gun deaths are a bad and overly politically charged example to make the (valid) point about risk assessment. Car accidents are a much better example that are still far more likely to kill you in most nations, including Brussels (I'm not sure about Syria and Iraq, but I suspect there you are probably right).
Your own comparison is flawed. Standing in northern Iraq vs standing at a shooting range? What the fuck is this? Accidental gun deaths don't just happen at shooting ranges. It's children shooting their friends or parents at home. It's bystanders in gang violence.
Take any other statistic for accidental or otherwise entirely preventable deaths. People get into a fucking panic and gloss over all kinds of much more important problems because TERRORISM. This is the whole point of terrorism! To cause FEAR and PANIC in order to force us to take some political action. I'm more worried about whether I'll make it home without getting killed on the highway!
Howabout airline crashes? 34 people were bombed in Brussels? Guess what, 136 people died in airline crashes last year, and ~650 the year before! Are we going into a fucking panic about that?
Of course the people who just got bombed will disagree... but they will have an entirely biased opinion that has absolutely no relevance to the overall reality. Why the heck do people keep repeating this line? Go ask somebody who was hit by lightning if we should be worried about getting hit by lightning! It's irrelevant!
No, but statistics might help some people understand why they shouldn't give in to fear when it comes to terror attacks since there are many, many more likely ways for them to die. This is pretty important since that fear is the whole goal of these attacks, and it also provides a way for non-terrorists to manipulate people for their own ends. Although I admit this particular method of alleviating fear might only work on people on HN.
This is the fear talking. An understandably emotional argument. The people in stretchers dying from all the more common causes of death than terrorism, like being accidentally shot, would like to disagree with you.
Terrorists kill very few people. People driving cars kill far more people.
9 people are killed in America every day related to distracted driving. In four days distracted and texting Americans kill more people than terrorists did in Belgium. Let's have an uproar about that.
Would you say the same thing if someone asked about plane safety and then the plane fell?
Statistically, it's still highly improbable. Of course, Belgium and other NATO related countries in Europe currently face a stronger possibility of crimes of this kind but actually suffering from one is unlikely.
I'm really sorry for being a Debbie downer here but I find the lack of such initiatives for Turkish (or similar) blasts in past week appalling. Were the lives of the non-European victims not worth FaceBook/HNs attention?
Is this selective outrage really suits a rational platform like HackerNews?
Eh? It looks like they turned it on for the Ankara blasts[0].
Anyway, the whole thing reminds me of the NPR bit about "The Cost of Free"[1]. People's expectations rapidly change once you offer some of them something. While the main lesson in that story is about charging after offering something for free for many years, there's the second lesson: the reason it was made free was that the Brits were upset that the Americans got free doughnuts.
Afterwards, no one got free doughnuts. It's funny. Something that seems clearly like a Pareto improvement ends up not being one because of people's opinions of perceived privilege.
There's a very popular experiment that goes a bit like this. You and another person must share $100. You get to pick the distribution, the other gets to accept or reject. You get one choice.
If you pick say $50 each, the other person tends to always accept. If you give him more, he'll accept too. But what if you give yourself $75, and the other $25?
If he rejects it, you both get nothing. Turns out, at certain levels (cant remember where), people tend to reject.
Which is interesting, because every non-0 figure is a benefit to you. If you get $5 and the other $95, why reject it? You'd get nothing. It's a one-time experiment, you're basically rejecting free money.
It turns out that the other guy getting $95 and 'screwing you', is so bad, that you'd rather reject free money than for him to get more than he 'deserves'.
Now if this was your enemy, or say someone close to you, sure. But this experiment holds with complete strangers you don't see and will never meet. The notion that someone gets more than you, when normal moral notions suppose you deserve an equal amount, incites people to be vengeful even at the cost of free money.
I think that there is a good explanation for that emotional reaction.
We have not evolved in an environment where you interact with "complete strangers you don't see and will never meet". So, you can't allow others take the upper hand on you too much. That is even more true if third parties are observing the interaction.
You can see the same, for instance, in how pub fights start for the most stupid reasons. Even if is a big city and they will never meet again, they can't just leave it alone because when our brain was programmed it was not going to be only an interaction. And if your friends, or god forbid, attractive women are present, then the contenders are trapped in the situation.
Facebook did the same for the last Ankara bombing (and for the other two in the last 5 months, if you're interested). When you have bombs blast in your capital each month it's quite hard to expect same amount of interest from these people, even us living in Turkey are getting (sadly) used to it.
I agree. It'd be terrible UX if I was Turkish, Facebook had the check in feature, some of my friends could get around the block and say they are okay while others couldn't.
On some level, it betrays a judgement from facebook about what constitutes "terrorism." I don't think there has ever been a safety check after a hellfire missile from a US drone.
Don't know, I read a lot about the Turkish bombings. Also a lot of complaints that people don't take it as seriously like you do. But I would say people take it seriously and the people complaining just makes everything worse.
But for me that lives in EU, a bomb in EU feels much closer than a bomb in Turkey. It is not strange at all?
Possibly Europeans are more interested in European news, just like Arab/Asian countries are more interested in their culture's news. I admit when their culture/ethics/religion encroaches upon Europe's, such as with this week's outrage, things get mixed up little. I'm sure the Turkish equivalent of Facebook has its own system.
Truth is that most first-world citizens, including myself, can only relate to other first-world citizens. If a tragic event hits Nigeria, Pakistan or even Turkey, I will probably ignore it.
We're most likely to care about what is/feels closer to us, what we can relate to, what we know. You'd feel more if your neighbour whom you greet every day on the foyer died in a car crash that if it were a random person you didn't know at all, right? It's the same principle.
I also think that there is not just empathy at play, but fear. Because the closer an event is to us or the people we know/relate to, the more we realise it could also happen to us.
These Brussels attacks have wall-to-wall coverage on all news stations, including local ones, unlike the Turkish blasts which were covered much less and only by the major outlets.
Belgium wages war against ISIS as a part of NATO, and ISIS includes some Belgian citizens, so they wage war against them. It's just they are further away than Kurds. But as we can see, explosion-wise, this makes small difference.
So what? FB also exists in non 1st world countries in case you didn't noticed.
You may ignore it since you don't know anyone there, but people from there would appreciate knowing their friends and relatives are safe.
Still, like it was already told, FB did activate the feature also in the Ankara bombings and other occasions for Turkey, there is nothing racist here going on.
People in third world nations don't have any empathy super powers for people who are ethnically, religiously, or socio-economically from themselves either.
Intent is valid point, number of casualties is not. Terrorism is nearly statistically insignificant in the scheme of things. If you are truly concerned about human life buying mosquito nets will offer you much greater ROI compared to any anti-terrorism measures you can envision.
You're right, I should have been way more specific. I mean number of casualties in the one specific incident. Terrorist acts often involve tens, if not hundreds, of people, both killed and injured. In the vast majority of cases, a drink-driving accident will affect a handful of people.
Nothing about any of this is very rational, but there's something in our collective nature that draws more attention to a single incident involving X casualties than X/Y unrelated incidents each involving Y casualties.
The fallacy in the "terror kills statistically insignificant numbers of people compared to driving" type of argument is that the intent of the perpetrators is to cause as much damage as possible, unlike the average text reading driver, and they are prevented from doing so by the police and spy agencies. Left to act freely, the perps would kill thousands or millions gladly.
>Left to act freely, the perps would kill thousands or millions gladly.
Firstly, these are mostly teenagers in caves with yesterdays cell phones. They simply don't have the resources or the numbers to kill millions, or even tens of thousands. I don't think you understand that your argument is a purely emotional one[1]. It appears to be rather simple to sneak a firearm on a plane[2], and yet there has not been any repeat attacks like 9/11. Firearms are illegal in Paris and they have large divisions of domestic and foreign spies, that failed to prevent anything[3]. Now lawmakers around the globe want to outlaw prime numbers (encryption) yet terrorists don't seem to even bother using it[4]. Emotion aside, dollar for dollar, fighting malaria is more effective in preventing the loss of human life than fighting terrorism by many orders of magnitude.
[1]"If a man is crossing a river
And an empty boat collides with his own skiff,
Even though he be a bad-tempered man
He will not become very angry.
But if he sees a man in the boat,
He will shout to him to steer clear.
And if the shout is not heard he will shout
Again, and yet again, and begin cursing -
And all because there is somebody in that boat.
Yet if the boat were empty,
He would not be shouting, and he would not be angry." - Chuang Tzu
Something about this bothers me too. I am trying to formulate a way to look at this that gives Facebook the benefit of the doubt, like "anyone you can help is good, even if you can't help them all"... but there's a pessimism in me that says Facebook is being opportunist.
For a site this ubiquitous, they don't need to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get a few more page views -- I think this is earnestly meant as a service to others.
I don't have a Facebook account, so I can't verify, but at least on that landing page, they're not serving up advertisements.
Can't speak for Facebook, but as for HNs attention, you didn't submit a story about those blasts. How appalling. If you think something is important and relevant to HN's interests, submit it. It's not 100% everyone else's responsibility to submit things to get votes.
