Facebook apologizes for enabling Safety Check in the wrong countries after Pakistan suicide bombing

Over the Easter weekend a suicide bomber blew himself up in Lahore, Pakistan. The explosion killed dozens of people and Facebook enabled its Safety Check feature to make it easier for those in the area to let loved ones know they were OK.

But as well as asking people in Pakistan whether they were safe, Facebook also activated the feature and sent messages to people in other unaffected parts of the world. Facebook users in New York, Hong Kong, Cairo and numerous other places received messages asking "Have you been affected by the explosion?" with no reference made to Pakistan or Lahore. Facebook has issued an apology for any unnecessary worry this may have caused.

Mark Zuckerberg announced the activation of Safety Check on Sunday: "This morning we activated Safety Check in Pakistan after a bomb targeted children and their families in a park in Lahore. Over the last two months, we have activated Safety Check several times for acts of terror -- including in Turkey and Belgium -- so people in the area can let their friends and loved ones know they're safe".

It wasn’t long before people took to Facebook and Twitter to complain about the erroneous messages. Facebook was quick to rectify the problem and issued an apology:

We activated Safety Check today in Lahore, Pakistan, after an explosion that took place there. We hope the people in the area of the bombing find Safety Check a useful and helpful way to let their friends and family know they are okay. Unfortunately, many people not affected by the crisis received a notification asking if they were okay. This kind of bug is counter to our intent. We worked quickly to resolve the issue and we apologize to anyone who mistakenly received the notification.

This is not the first time that Facebook's Safety Check has proved problematic or controversial. Last year, questions were asked about why Facebook had not enabled the tool for some disasters, but had for others.