San Francisco (AFP)

Facebook announced Tuesday the activation of a self-help tool, dubbed "Help Community", in its "Covid-19 Information Center", where users can learn about the pandemic and offer or request help when needed.

In this tab, we already find requests and proposals related to the health and economic crisis.

Individuals offer to run errands for vulnerable people who prefer not to leave their homes and associations seek volunteers to feed people who are homeless, for example.

The "Help Community" tool is supposed to facilitate this type of exchange and action, within a radius of 80 to 100 km around your home. Users can define this radius.

They can also use it to make donations to local or international associations, such as the United Nations Foundation and the World Health Organization. Facebook has already pledged to give them $ 20 million.

"We have been working on this feature for about two weeks," Fiji Simo, the app's manager, told AFP.

At this stage, almost half of humans are called to stay at home to slow the spread of the coronavirus, and the level of use of platforms and audio or video calls made via WhatsApp and Messenger (Facebook messaging), exploded.

The tech giant finds itself at the heart of the crisis, with the responsibility of ensuring all its usual services and additional functions, while fighting against disinformation, despite the constraints: most of its employees work from their homes and advertising revenues are affected.

The "Help Community" will be installed in the coming days in several countries, including the United States and France, and more broadly in the following weeks.

It had been launched for the first time in 2016 to contribute to relief efforts after natural disasters and then reactivated during crises such as fires in Australia.

Facebook's "Covid-19 Information Center" has been deployed in around 30 countries.

"At this stage we have connected more than a billion people with resources from health authorities via our Information Center and educational pop-up windows on Facebook and Instagram," said the social network. "Over 100 million of these people clicked on the links to find out more."

© 2020 AFP