rabboRubble To start off I understand your point that the Safety Check feature can be valuable. Japan's typhoon system is fantastic example you brought up where the entire population of a city needs to, after the incident, notate their safety. However, this is vastly different than the case being discussed of the London fire. In the London fire a small minority, ~500 people, results in a 6 miles notification (other comments said ~9 million people). As stated this kind of notification provides very little value. And instead provides negative value by switching peoples perceived safety ("I think my mother is safe sleeping currently") to a "required" opt-in safety check ("Well she hasn't said anything...so is she?").

This difference is my problem with the Safety Check system and, I believe, the authors. If there is an event where my safety is indeed in a majority questionable state (Typhoon takes out my town) then prompt me with a check #ThankYou. If there was an event which doesn't swing to a majority question then leave it to the individual case.

2 side notes: 1. Why do I personally take issue? Well, I was a student during the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Ohio_State_University_att... and felt "forced" to provide my answer to the Safety Check as I know my one crazy aunt would go loony if I didn't. In no way did the event warrant this switch from perceived safety to opt-in safety (it was 13 students hurt of >50,000).

2. As other commenters have noted "With great power, comes great responsibility!". If they're going to deploy this technology make sure it provides value and effects, changes safety to opt-in, for the smallest possible subset. Additionally, as you pointed out in your original post allow individuals to add themselves to the Safety Check list if you are getting spammed with messages.

Sorry for the long post but, like the author, I was very taken aback when I first encountered this feature on Facebook. While I understand the good intentions. Personally, it fell into the area of prompting a world where we need that instant knowledge, text back, response, etc. which frankly isn't that healthy...