Facebook's Amber Alerts to help locate missing children

Washington, Jan 13 (ANI): Facebook is teaming up with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to launch a new system called Amber alerts to issue bulletins about child abductions.

Each state has its own Facebook Amber Alert page, and users who become a fan will immediately get alerts in their news feed when there is a missing child in their area.

Facebook is donating 50 million advertising impressions to publicize the system, the company said, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The social networking giant wanted to make sure that the system was something that users wanted and believes that the message will be most effective if it is spread virally - by people posting on their wall, said Chris Sonderby, the lead security and investigations counsel for Facebook.

If the service successful, it could serve as a model for state and cities get information out in other emergencies. (ANI)