Facebook now issuing AMBER alerts

The AMBER alert program has now been extended to Facebook, with users of the social networking site invited to become a part of the initiative to find missing children in the U.S. and beyond.

Social networking and the sites which accommodate it are often painted as bad news, especially for children. Yes, they can be addictive, and yes, there is the odd pervert using the likes of Facebook and MySpace to find their next target, but as long as parents are watchful and teach their kids common sense social networking sites are no more dangerous than any other communication tool.


And thanks to a new partnership between Facebook, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), they may actually be a presence for good in some cases.
The AMBER alert program is what kicks in when an abduction of a missing minor is suspected. The alerts are disseminated by TV and radio stations, email and text messages, and billboards and traffic signs. And now, Facebook.

Pages have been set up for all 50 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. If you ‘Like’ or become a fan of these pages then any AMBER alerts for that state will show up on your news feed.
According to PC Mag, NCMEC president Ernie Allen said:

Average people doing average things but paying attention are saving lives and reuniting families. With more than 500 million Facebook users, this bold initiative will help us mobilize many more people and bring more missing children home.

This is a brilliant idea. The Web is known as a place where things – videos, news stories, memes – can go viral very quickly. If this is true of light-hearted content why not more serious stuff as well? And there is surely nothing more serious than finding a missing child who has potentially been abducted.