A social media platform is working with the U.S. Department of Justice AMBER Alert system to help raise awareness of missing children more efficiently.
Starting this week, Instagram is partnering with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and will be providing AMBER Alerts that will include a photo, description and contact information for local law enforcement. Facebook has a similar partnership that rolled out in 2015, and officials found it fairly successful.
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According to reports, the AMBER Alert system has helped recover more than 1,100 children who have gone missing since 1996.
“Instagram is a platform based on the power of photos, making it a perfect fit for the AMBER Alert program,” Said President and CEO at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Michelle DeLaune. “We know that photos are a critical tool in the search for missing children and by expanding the reach to the Instagram audience, we’ll be able to share photos of missing children with so many more people.”
Instagram’s parent company Meta will dictate which AMBER Alerts will show up on your feed by a variety of profile details including the city listed in your profile and your IP address and location services (if it’s turned on).
Below are a couple of Missing In Michigan cases: