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Posts about the civil unrest in Charlotte , North Carolina, automatically triggered a Facebook feature that allows users to mark whether or not they are safe on Thursday, something that typically only happens amid natural disasters and acts of terrorism.
The feature is intended to “ help communities prepare for and recover from natural disasters around the globe,” according to Facebook. The algorithm only needs 50 people to note that they feel unsafe for others in the area to be invited to answer the Safety Check. Whether they are in a “crisis area” is checked by a Facebook locator and third-party sources.
Facebook initially had a human team determine when to activate the feature, which already showed signs of bias when it was initiated for the Paris terrorist attacks but not for the Beirut attacks the day before.
Facebook Vice President of Growth Alex Schultz explained that it was first tried out as a non-natural disaster tool in Paris; the unrest in Charlotte is the first protest to automatically trigger the feature.
Residents of Charlotte defied a curfew order and state of emergency and took to the streets for a third consecutive night in the latest outburst of unrest provoked by brutal systemic violence against Black and brown communities in the United States.
The protests, which come in response to the fatal police shooting of Keith Lament Scott, come mere days after the extrajudicial killing of Terence Crutcher by police in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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