Facebook’s Community Help feature is now open to organisations, businesses | HT Tech

Facebook’s Community Help feature is now open to organisations, businesses

Community Help can be found under Safety Check on Facebook.

By: INDO ASIAN NEWS SERVICE
| Updated on: Feb 16 2018, 12:05 IST
Facebook’s Community Help feature allows users to provide information and services for people in crisis
Facebook’s Community Help feature allows users to provide information and services for people in crisis (Facebook)
Facebook’s Community Help feature allows users to provide information and services for people in crisis
Facebook’s Community Help feature allows users to provide information and services for people in crisis (Facebook)

Facebook has started opening up its Community Help feature to businesses and other organisations so that they can provide critical information and services for people to get the help they need in a crisis. Facebook's Community Help feature is a part of the Safety Check system.

The Community Help feature was added to Facebook's Safety Check system a year ago to let people find and give help such as food, shelter and transportation after a crisis.

"But people helping people is only part of the solution. Organisations and businesses also play an integral role in responding to crises and helping communities rebuild," said Facebook's Product Lead for Social Good Asha Sharma said on Thursday.

"Enabling organisations and businesses to post in Community Help will give them a new way to reach communities impacted by crises," Sharma said.

Facebook has started rolling out the feature to Pages for organisations and businesses like Direct Relief, Lyft, Chase, Feeding America, International Medical Corps, The California Department of Forestry and Fire and Save the Children.

The social media giant said it would make the feature available to more in the coming weeks.

Some of the crises where people used Community Help the most in 2017 include the flooding in Brazil (May), Hurricane Harvey in the US (August), the attack in Barcelona (August), the flooding in Mumbai (August) and the earthquake in Central Mexico (September).

People have also engaged with Community Help more than 750,000 times via posts, comments and messages, and the most frequent categories they use are volunteer opportunities, shelter, food and clothing donations.

"Our priority is to build tools that help keep people safe and provide them with ways to get the help they need to recover and rebuild after a crisis," Sharma said.

"We hope this update makes it even easier for people to get the help they need in times of crisis and will give businesses and organizations an opportunity to build stronger communities around them."

Catch all the Latest Tech News, Mobile News, Laptop News, Gaming news, Wearables News , How To News, also keep up with us on Whatsapp channel,Twitter, Facebook, Google News, and Instagram. For our latest videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel.

First Published Date: 16 Feb, 12:05 IST
NEXT ARTICLE BEGINS