Social Media Aids Search for Missing Persons

Social media sites are often seen as places to swap gossip, share photos and waste time, but they are increasingly being used in the hunt for missing persons.

One such case is the hunt for 6 years old Andrew Thompson, who was reunited with his father in the Netherlands after a two and half year search.

Mr. Thompson’s desire to track down his son was so great that he quit his job as a deputy fire chief mounted a bicycle and rode 6500 kilometres through Europe to find him. He also regularly used social media sites to help raise awareness for his quest. Australian Missing Persons Register founder Nicole Morris, who helped Mr. Thompson search for his son for more than two years, credits social media with being a major factor in helping find Andrew.

Moreover, Ms. Morris also added that using social media sites like Facebook or MySpace is an effective and immediate way to reach huge number of people in a short space of time. Social media allows “an instant reaction from people” and is a fantastic source of emotional support for families.

But while there are many advantages to the platform, Ms Morris also find some parts concerning. By exposing personal information on social media page, there are groups of people that want to find contact for families of missing people for dishonourable reasons. Additionally, Ms Morris is required to do regular monitor on the page in case other people would post defamatory or rude comments.

But she thinks that the advantages of using social media still outweigh the concerns. In her work for Australian Missing Persons Register, she encourages people to use social media to look for their loved ones which could raise so much awareness that it will result in someone coming forward to provide really good information.

Here, a video showing how social media sites like Twitter and facebook are helping police get  the word out about missing people.

Would you guys prefer to do the same to find missing person? any alternatives?