Facebook Will Now Send Amber Alerts to Your News Feed

If your Facebook feed looks like mine, then Amber Alerts have been popping up on your Facebook page for years. Concerned family, friends and neighbors share posts about missing children in and around their area, hoping someone will see the photo and recognize a missing child.

These good deeds haven’t gone unnoticed at Facebook headquarters.

“Kids have actually been brought home because of the information people shared on Facebook,” Facebook’s trust and safety manager Emily Vacher told NPR.

This inspired the company, which announced that it will be pairing with The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to bring relevant Amber Alerts directly to your Facebook feed.

The new feature will essentially do what Facebook users have already been doing, but in a more focused way.

“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,” Facebook said in a press release.

Click here to see the current list of children missing in Massachusetts.

That’s why the site will only send notifications to those who live in areas pinpointed by police. Facebook will send out all important information from the Amber Alert, including a photograph of the missing child, a license plate number, the name and description of the child and suspected abductor.

People can share the alert on their page with a link to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s poster, which has the most up-to-date information.

But if anyone is worried that their newsfeed will be covered in Amber Alerts from now on, Facebook said that is unlikely. The number you’ll see depends on your area.

“Some people may see a few each year and many people will likely get no alerts at all,” Facebook said in the press release.

Since the system started in 1996, Amber Alerts have helped find 725 missing kids. Facebook officials hope sharing alerts on the site helps increase that number.

Image via Facebook

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