Facebook Debuts Amber Alert Feature

Facebook Inc. wants the public to know when a child is missing or abducted.

Under a new program, the social-networking service will send out Amber Alerts, which police and other authorities send out in an area where they may be searching for a minor. Alerts will now be active by default, rather than requiring users to sign up for notifications, according to Emily Vacher, Facebook’s trust and safety manager.

“People are interested in this already,” Vacher told the Bloomberg News  in an interview. “We're just really amplifying what people are doing in hopes the right information gets to the right person at the right time so that a child can be reunited safely with their family.”