It was confirmed, there was no bomb scare in Bangkok, Thailand today. Facebook explosion Safety Check was just a false alarm.
Facebook's Bangkok Explosion Was A False Alarm According To Safety Check
According to CNET, the site's Safety Check feature has been critical during a group of terrorist attack and natural disasters, helping friends and families find out if their loved ones are safe during emergencies. It's been activated across the world for more than 300 times by its users, for disasters such as hurricanes, mass shootings, and terrorist attacks.
On Tuesday, the automated tool posted out an alert about an explosion happened in Bangkok, Thailand. It saying that "media sources" confirmed the report. However, it was deactivated within an hour. One of the many sites used as a link for readers to see more was Bangkok Informer, which sourced a video from a 2015 bombing.
The "source" of the @Facebook Safety Check for Bangkok: A fake news site that scrapped stuff from elsewhere…!
According to BBC, an incident occurred in the Thailand's capital city where a man threw ping pong-sized firecrackers that resembled explosives at a government building. However, Facebook claims this separate incident prompted Safety Check to turn on.
Though there were no explosions, as reported by The Verge, the event page for this particular Safety Check was titled "The Explosion in Bangkok." Additionally, there were no links to the original news story listed. Instead, it cites the 2015 explosion, and a blog post that roughly translates to "When your friend digs up news about a bombing that happened a year ago to share on Facebook, so very annoying."
As you remember, this is not the first time Safety Check experienced a mix-up like this. Back in March, Facebook alerted users in the US, UK and other countries to mark themselves safe after a bombing in Pakistan.
As a way of fixing it, Facebook has apologized for mistakenly asking users from specific countries whether they were affected by a bombing in Lahore, Pakistan that killed at least 69 people and wounded left around 300 people.
