The popular social media platform Instagram has been on the agenda recently with its new features. Now the company is taking action for missing and abducted children. According to a blog post, Instagram launched its new feature on Wednesday in honor of Global Missing Children’s Day. This feature will allow users to see and share notifications of missing children in their area.
The alert will include information such as picture, description and abduction location
Announced that users have launched the ‘Amber Alerts’ feature for missing children in their area. With the new feature, there will be a warning in the Instagram feed for users who are in the search area. The alert will include all known information such as a picture, description and location of the abduction. Afterwards, users will share the warning to spread the news.
Feature is rolling out first in the US and 25 other countries. In addition, the company plans to expand this feature to more countries in the future. The company stated that there was a search near users who received an Amber warning on Instagram. Additionally, the platform says it uses available information such as the city listed on a user’s profile, IP address if turned on, and location services. The reason for this is to determine who will show the alerts.
Launching today, the feature will be available in many countries over the next few weeks, including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Ecuador, Greece, Guatemala, Ireland, Jamaica, Korea, Lithuania, Luxembourg.
The Amber Alerts feature was developed in partnership with various organizations such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the US and the National Crime Agency in the UK. Emily Vacher, director of trust and security at Meta, explained in a blog post on the subject. “Amber Alerts is an important way we can support our communities in keeping children safe, and we look forward to continuing this work.”
Instagram’s parent company, Meta, first rolled out the Amber Alerst feature on Facebook in 2015. Since then, the social media giant has featured Amber Alerts in the search streams of Facebook users. Instagram says missing child alerts have helped rescue hundreds of children across the US and around the world.
So, what do you think about the new feature? Do not forget to share your views with us in the comments section.