Facebook Will Begin Posting Targeted Amber Alerts

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

The modern day milk carton

At last count (September 2014), Facebook was sitting pretty with 864 million daily active users, and 1.35 billion monthly active users (as of September 30, 2014). With so many eyeballs zeroing in on the world's largest social playground each and every day, Facebook and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children hope the site can help find missing children through targeted AMBER Alerts.
As part of the effort, AMBER Alerts will appear in people's News Feeds in specific search areas after a child has been abducted and the National Center has issued an alert. The posts will include photographs and other details about the missing child, which will be shown on desktop and mobile devices. And like other posts, you'll be able to share the alert, as well as link directly to the National Center's missing child poster containing the most up-to-date information, Facebook says.
"We know the chances of finding a missing child increase when more people are on the lookout, especially in the critical first hours. Our goal is to help get these alerts out quickly to the people who are in the best position to help," Emily Vacher, Trust and Safety Manger for Facebook, said in a blog post.
This is something that Facebook says has worked on multiple occasions in the past, just not on an official basis. For example, in 2014 an 11-year-old girl was safely recovered after a motel owner recognized her from an AMBER Alert that a friend had shared on Facebook.
Law enforcement will determine the range of the target area for each alert -- it's estimated that, depending on location, users will see between "a few [AMBER Alerts] each year" down to none at all. They'll appear in the News Feed, but won't trigger notifications to a user's phone.
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