Facebook has been forced to activate Safety Check for the city of Barcelona due to a multiple hit-and-run on the Rambla de Canaletes, a of the busiest areas of the center. This function will allow citizens to confirm to their friends and family that they are okay, and will avoid saturating mobile phone networks.
Safety Check was created in 2014 for emergency situations and, unfortunately, Facebook has had to activate it quite a few times already. It is used so that we can indicate on the social network that we are safe, which saves multiple communications by different means. In addition, functions have been added to ask for and offer help from other users.
The authorities believe that the hit-and-run was a terrorist attack, and they are looking for the person responsible. There are several fatalities, and numerous injuries. The Ramblas area of Barcelona is closed, and probably the metro and train stations in the area will also be closed. In this context, using the Facebook Safety Check can be a way of confirming how we are doing without complicating the situation.
Spanish mobile networks should withstand a situation like this but, in a city as big as Barcelona and full of tourists in the summer, we don't really know if they will be able to manage all voice calls.
At the bottom of the article you have a link to Facebook to access the Safety Check of Barcelona When you log in with your account you will see the responses of your contacts. If you are in the city, you can offer help or ask for it, although it is not an official system, it is based on the solidarity of the Facebook community.
The Safety Check had never been activated before in Spain, and this outrage in Barcelona, probably due to an attack, has forced Facebook to enable it. Users in the area will be able to confirm that they are okay when entering the social network, while their contacts, anywhere, will see their response so they can calm down In these delicate moments, it may be better to use this system to not overload mobile networks if it is not essential.
