Amber Alerts Come to Facebook’s News Feed

Amber Alerts, alerts put out by American law enforcement agencies to inform people about children who have been abducted and are at serious risk of death or injury, will now start showing up in your Facebook feed.

Facebook already tracks where its users are when they log into the service, and it will target the messages to people in specific cities or even neighborhoods, depending on what law enforcement requests. It will make the alerts the second post in the news feed of targeted users so they can’t miss it. And Facebook will encourage recipients to spread the word further to some or all of their friends on the service. Although there is no way to opt out of the alerts, most users probably will not get more than a few per year.