AMBER Alert Partners With Facebook

wiredmikey writes "The AMBER Alert program, credited with the safe recovery of 525 children across the country, has a new ally today: Facebook. Facebook users are able to sign up to receive AMBER Alert bulletins for their state which will be sent to them through the Facebook 'News Feed' feature. An estimated 800,000 children are reported missing every year. AMBER Alert is a voluntary partnership involving law-enforcement agencies and broadcasters. The new Facebook AMBER Alert pages represent an important expansion of the secondary distribution system and will enable AMBER Alerts to dramatically increase the reach of and impact of these life-saving bulletins."

Re:Low success rate?

[betterunixthanunix]

I did not say that I had better ideas; however, I am not the only person to point out that the AMBER Alert system is not highly effective:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/20/abducted/ [boston.com]

Amber Alerts: Corwin

[aapold]

Corwin was last seen after the patternfall war heading for a social function in the Courts of Chaos. He was wearing his typical black and silver garb with a rose boorch, and his blade Grayswandir. If you have any information on his whereabouts please contact Random.

Caine - Caine was last seen walking down a street in Kashfa, heading to a coffee shop. He was wearing black and green, with a rakish hat and feather, and had his jeweled daggers. Note - he has been known to fake dissappearances before.

Fiona - Fiona was last seen in Amber the night Merlin returned, at the main dinner. There are unconfirmed reports that she was later seen at a nightclub in rural upstate New York, and stole a small sedan from a parking lot there. She was wearing a green and lavender dress.

Bleys - Bleys has also been missing since the night Fiona vanished in Amber, they may have left together. Since there a man matching his description was seen on security camera footage selling several expensive rings in a pawn shop in Las Vegas. He was wearing a snazzy red and orange blazer.

Abduction and the bystander effect

[Krishnoid]

Even when a kid is ostensibly being abducted by a stranger, a lot of people won't respond [youtube.com]. So I wonder how AMBER could be made more effective to compensate for this effect (assuming it's real).