Christian’s Corner: Facebook’s problem
0Written By: Christian Wright
Breaking news out of the realm of Facebook, everyone on Earth is from Pakistan! That’s one of many jokes spread around the Internet from the past weekend as an untold number of people around the world were given notification of the bombings in Pakistan on Sunday and were asked to go through with Facebook’s safety checks. While I have always been a fan of Facebook safety checks, as it allows authorities and loved ones easier access to knowing whether someone is okay following a horrific event such as a natural disaster or terrorist attack, bugs like this which caused people nowhere near the Middle East to go through with a safety check hurt the credibility of Facebook and of the safety check service. I received my notification while eating in the UPIKE cafeteria and was initially confused, then panicked because the notification did not explicitly mention the explosion was in Pakistan. After delving into the details, I soon learned of the attack and was deeply confused as to why I got the notification. Around that time, I overheard several conversations about how others had received the same notification and wondered what Facebook was doing if they allowed such a massive glitch to affect what seemed like their entire userbase. All in all, while this did not hurt anyone, and Facebook has since apologized for the bug in the system, this looks bad on the company’s part and may end up doing more harm for Facebook than good.