Facebook Set To Publish Ebola Donation Button

He said Facebook will publish a donate button
across the top of its users’ News Feeds
beginning Thursday, as part of the company’s
effort to quell the Ebola outbreak in West
Africa. Facebook will prompt users to make a
donation and then share that news with
others on the service in the hopes of
spreading the word, explains Naomi Gleit,
Facebook’s VP of product management.
With the donation button, which will live on the
site for about a week, users can direct their
money to three different charities: the
American Red Cross; the International Medical
Corps, and Save the Children.
The company is also donating 100 wireless
hotspots to areas in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra
Leone where first responders are stationed.
The hotspots will provide voice and data
services to those on the ground, says Chris
Daniels, VP of Internet.org, the company’s
initiative to get the entire world online.
Facebook is also utilizing its ad technology to
target specific users with educational
materials about Ebola. For example, users in
Sierra Leone will see explanatory messages
fromUNICEF, a United Nations relief
organization, in their feed as part of an
educational push, says Gleit.
While Africa is a much smaller market for
Facebook than North America, Europe or Asia,
more than 100 million people there use
Facebook every month, roughly half of the
continent’s internet users.
And while Ebola is an obvious area of focus
now, Facebook wants to make these kinds of
humanitarian efforts more often, says Gleit.
“It’s part of a larger effort to do more [in the
future],” she added.
Good Stuff.
Credits:AIT News.