Facebook has just released a new program that provides military personnel, veterans, and their families with resources when their content is flagged online.
This specifically includes when content is thought of as harmful or suicidal. The new application comes as an extension of suicide prevention that Facebook launched in December, which allows friends to alert the site when another user is expressing suicidal thoughts.
Facebook then sends the flagged user information about suicide prevention and other resources that are available. Its engineers developed the military-specific program after a survey said that ten per cent of military family members had considered suicide ,and nine per cent surveyed said they knew of a service member who had contemplated suicide. Approximately 86 per cent of military families said they use Facebook daily.
However, this isn’t the first application Facebook engineers have developed that has is making the attempt to create a more social site.
In a press release earlier this month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg expressed the need for more awareness about organ donation, and that the social network could help.
Users in the United States will soon be able to include when and where they have registered their organs. Organ donors will be subject to the same privacy functions as a normal profile security setting.
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Nicole Siena is an intern for the Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter at @nicolesiena
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