Facebook activates Safety Check service after sniper attack on Dallas police
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Police tape marks off the area where a shooting took place in downtown Dallas, Friday, July 8, 2016. Snipers opened fire on police officers in the heart of Dallas during protests over two recent fatal police shootings of black men. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Facebook activated its Safety Check service that lets users notify friends and family that they are safe after Thursday’s coordinated sniper attack in Dallas that killed five police officers and wounded seven more.
The attack during an anti-police brutality protest was condemned by President Obama as a “vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement.”
Last month Facebook activated its Safety Check service for the first time in the U.S. after a gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a packed Orlando gay nightclub.
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Designed for times of disaster or crisis, Safety Check lets users in a specific area notify friends and family that they are safe. Users can also check on others in the affected area and mark friends as safe.
The social network activated its Safety Check feature following the Brussels terror attacks and the bombing in Ankara, Turkey earlier this year, as well as the attacks that rocked Paris last year.
Earlier this year Facebook apologized for a glitch in its Safety Check service that sent out misdirected notifications after the Easter Sunday bombing that killed 70 people in Lahore, Pakistan.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Dallas shooting featured prominently on social media Friday with #Dallas a top trending term on Twitter. Dallas was also trending on Google and news coverage of the attack appeared in Facebook’s Trending Topics section.
Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers