users to donate any amount of their choice to fight the deadly Ebola
virus. 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.
Credits: AIT NEWS
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