Facebook Begins Posting Amber Alerts For Missing Children
PONTIAC (WWJ) - Facebook is officially joining the effort to help finding missing children.
The popular social media site is working with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to send Amber Alerts to users' mobile phones if they are in a search area where a child has been abducted, and alerts about missing kids will appear on Facebook newsfeeds.
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard says this will certainly help his investigators.
"A lot of people are constantly checking, posting on their Facebook and they're looking at it a lot, so they're more likely to see it and that gives us access to more eyes and ears in the community," Bouchard said.
Derrick Jackson, of the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office, agrees it's a great idea. He told WWJ's Beth Fisher they already use Facebook daily to get information to and from the public.
"We get more tips on our Facebook page than we do (through) any other means," Jackson said.
"Obviously there are so many people who are on Facebook — it's become like a part of our daily lives. So just the ability to get it out en mass....that's really what helps out on these situations is time and the number of people who are aware. Time is really of the essence," he said. "The ability to get out information of a missing child....very, very quick at the click of a button, I think is very important."
Jackson said the alerts will go out to specific geographic areas where authorities believe a missing child might be.
Facebook Inc. says people are already using its site to encourage their friends and family to help find missing children, and that several children have been reunited with their families as a result of information shared on the site.
Last March, a missing 11-year-old girl was found in a South Carolina motel room when a motel clerk called police after seeing an Amber Alert on Facebook.
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