What happens if there is <i>another</i> bomb, after someone has reported as "safe"? Are the "safe" statuses updated somehow, since the state of that person is now unknown?
I grew up in Belgium, and have family and childhood friends there. I was pleasantly surprised when I got random notifications from Facebook this morning as people I am friends with added themselves to the safety check list - it made it easy for me to quickly know who was OK.
Working in japan all the big companies feature systems like this. You get a e-mail and a call by a automated system. Then you have to respond with your status and if you can come to work :)
Facebook is being heavily used by inhabitants in Brussels to communicate right now. I have a friend asking for someone to check on his mother who lives downtown. He can't reach her because the phones systems are completely saturated. He found a neighbor able to go and check on her. For me, being able to log on and see that my friends are OK was helpful beyond description.
"Take me in oh tender woman, Take me in, for heaven's sake, Take me in oh tender woman," sighed the vicious snake.<p>This was Reddit's advice three days ago: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/M9umIy2g.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/M9umIy2g.png</a>
I'm really sorry for being a Debbie downer here but I find the lack of such initiatives for Turkish (or similar) blasts in past week appalling. Were the lives of the non-European victims not worth FaceBook/HNs attention?<p>Is this selective outrage really suits a rational platform like HackerNews?