Facebook will tap its 185 million U.S. users to help find and return missing children with a new initiative to push Amber Alerts to its popular social media news feeds. The new program, which launches Tuesday in partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, will geographically pinpoint the alerts so they appear in timelines of Facebook users who are near the search area. This a game changer, NCMEC founder John Walsh, host of CNNs 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. The Amber Alert system, named for Amber Hagerman, 9, who was kidnapped 19 years ago while riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas, and then murdered, began in 1996 in the Dallas area when broadcasters teamed with local police to enlist the publics help in finding abducted or missing children. In 2003, Congress passed the Protect Act, which instructed the Justice Department to develop a nationwide alert system. Now such alerts run on electronic highway signs, radio and television broadcasts and as text messages on mobile phones. Since the program began, Amber Alerts have helped police find 728 children, NCMEC records show. Law enforcement officials, working through NCMEC, issue about 180 alerts each year. Facebook will deliver the most complete information available, including photographs, said Emily Vacher, Trust and Safety Manager for Facebook Security. Users will not have to sign up for the service. Facebook will deliver the alerts automatically if a missing child is suspected to be in a users area. Facebook users in the USA are likely to see one or two alerts a year, she said. If you see an Amber Alert delivered, it means you are actually in a position to be able to help, Vacher said. The best chance of finding a child comes when the right information gets to the people at the right time. 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. Its people in the community who see things and share things, Vacher said. I like to think about this as the worlds largest community watch. Its giving the people in the community the tools they need to find a missing child. Buttons on the alert will allow Facebook users to share the information with their Facebook friends. A Learn More button will connect users to the NCMEC missing child poster and the most updated information, Vacher said. Weve really been inspired by people who already use Facebook for this purpose, Vacher said. In March, a front desk clerk at a motel in Florence, S.C., realized after reading a story posted in her Facebook timeline that a man she had checked in the day before was wanted by police for abducting his daughter after allegedly murdering her mother in their Maryland home, Vacher said. The clerk called police, she said. If Facebook users pay attention to alerts forwarded by their friends, it puts a whole army of civilians out there, looking, Walsh said. Walsh, whose son Adam was abducted and murdered in 1981, said social medias broad reach might have helped thwart his sons abduction had it existed at the time. Im sure someone would have seen something if they only knew to look for it, Walsh said. So please, look at these pictures. Be observant. Thats a child who is in grave danger, and if you see something, take the time to make the call. Thats the way we get children back alive. usatoday/story/news/nation/2015/01/13/facebook-to-feature-amber-alerts/21631723/
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:39:31 +0000
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