It was a rational move by Facebook to add AMBER Alerts in the news feeds to help recover missing children. The social media frontrunner announced on Jan. 13, Tuesday that the Alerts will be added to news feeds of all its 185 million members in the United States.
AMBER is officially known as America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response. It was also named after Amber Hagerman, a 9-year old abducted and murdered child from Arlington, Texas in 1996.
This act is in collaboration with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which will send the alerts to users via news feeds of particular areas. The alerts will be available on mobile and desktop users and sharable to a member's friends list, Tech News World reported.
A photo of a missing child, name, and other pertinent details will be in each alert and linked to the National Center's missing-child poster for every case.
In 2011, an 11-year-old girl was recovered when a motel owner recognized the child from the AMBER Alert that were shared on her Facebook, explained Emily Vacher, Facebook's trust and safety manager. The woman alerted the local authorities and rescued the child.
When the authorities issued an AMBER Alert case, which in turn will be issued by NCMEC issues, Facebook will send the case through news feed of users within the targeted area determined by the law enforcement. The alert will feed to each user's mobile or desktop with the corresponding details of each case, ABC News stated.
According to NCMEC co-founder John Walsh, Facebook and NCMEC enfold a strong collaboration and an immense promise.