Facebook users in Bangkok were falsely alerted to an “explosion” in the Thai capital, after the social network activated its Safety Check feature.
It allows Facebook users in danger zones to mark themselves as safe, but in this instance was triggered by a protester throwing firecrackers.
Facebook said it relied on a “trusted third party to confirm the incident”.
But the way it was labelled misled many online as people started sharing false news of a blast.
Facebook has recently faced criticism for allowing fake news to proliferate.
What actually happened in Bangkok
On Tuesday, a protester threw small firecrackers at a government building in Bangkok (link in Thai).
According to Facebook, this triggered the Safety Check feature at about 21:00 local time which created a page titled “The Explosion in Bangkok, Thailand” and people started marking themselves as safe.
The page also pulled in a link from a website called bangkokinformer.com referencing a BBC breaking news video about an explosion in Bangkok, but the video was in fact taken in 2015 in reference to a blast at the Erawan shrine.
Image copyright@SAKSITHCNA/TWITTERThe safety check feature was later deactivated.