"If this is a genuine public safety feature, if Facebook really are using Safety Check out of concern for their users welfare, then they should fully accept the concomitant responsibility. They should expend real resources to liaise with the relevant agencies and ensure that Safety Check is deployed only when appropriate, that it is accurately targeted and that it helps rather than hinders relief efforts.
If Facebook wish to rely on their usual excuses of "move fast and break stuff" and "it's not our fault, it's the algorithm", then we should see Safety Check in those terms - as a careless and cynical effort to boost engagement metrics.
"
100% agree. I think it's a well-intentioned effort gone wrong because the tuning is so off. I know a few engineers at Facebook who work on algorithms + related tooling, I'll make sure they see this.