Content uploaded by Machdel C Matthee
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Machdel C Matthee on Mar 08, 2018
Content may be subject to copyright.
adfa, p. 1, 2011.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011
Using Facebook to find missing persons: a crowd-sourcing
perspective
MJ Hattingh
Department of Informatics
University of Pretoria, South Africa
+2712 420 5322
Marie.Hattingh@up.ac.za
MC Matthee
Department of Informatics
University of Pretoria, South Africa
+2712 420 3365
Machdel.Matthee@up.ac.za
Abstract.
The study reported on in this paper explores the ways in which social media
and more specific Facebook is used in the quest for finding missing persons in
South Africa. Graphs are used to show how several Facebook communities in-
teract in search of missing persons. The graphs indicate differentiated roles of
the communities: some communities act mainly as originators of the messages
whereas others act more as distributors or end points of the messages. Crowd-
sourcing is used as a conceptual tool to further our understanding of the way
messages are shared. The four pillars of crowdsourcing as proposed by Hos-
seini et al, are used to analyse the network of communities as a crowd-source
system. It is argued that Facebook can be effective as crowdsourcing system
despite the fact that there is no guarantee that missing persons reported there
will be found, since it most likely provides much needed emotional support to
friends and relatives of the missing person. We also propose that authorities
use social media in a more focused and coordinated way, or combine it with
existing crowdsourcing tools, to harness the full “power of the crowd” in the
search for missing persons.
Keywords: Crowdsourcing, social media, Facebook, missing people, emotional
support
1 Introduction
“A child goes missing in South Africa every five hours” [1]. This alarming fact
is not just restricted to children and also not to just South Africa, but is a
world-wide problem. Scoop [2] reported in 2013 that 4,432,880 people have
disappeared in the past 20 years worldwide. The ubiquity of technology gives
people/ organisations additional tools to assist in the search for missing peo-
ple. Centralized databases (registers) can be constructed and information
can be shared with ease [3]. Previously, this type of information was usually
controlled and distributed through formalized organisations such as the law
enforcement services. However, with the rise in the uptake of social media,
ordinary citizens can now contribute to the search of missing persons
through Web 2.0 technologies. In South Africa, the social media platform
adoption has changed significantly. The 2014 World Wide Worx and
Fuseware report [4] has indicated that Facebook is the biggest social media
platform in South Africa. The report indicated that there are 9.4 million ac-
tive Facebook users in South Africa in 2014 compared to 6.8 million users in
2013. People use these social media platforms to create social networks.
However, these social networks can now be used as a problem solving tool,
where a problem is being “outsourced” to the “crowd”, this is known as
crowdsourcing [5]. Taking the problem solving abilities of networks of people
in consideration this study is attempting to answer the following question:
How do people use social media platforms, such as Facebook, to aid the
search of missing persons? This problem is approached from a crowd-
sourcing perspective. Crowds usually originates as an undefined network of
people that contribute to a particular task [5]. We answer the research ques-
tion by firstly mapping the interaction of Facebook groups/pages dedicated
to finding missing persons in South Africa and secondly using crowdsourcing
as analytical lens, to understand how Facebook communities interact in the
quest for finding missing persons.
The paper will first provide in section two some background on missing per-
sons which is followed by a brief discussion on the use of social media as a
crowdsourcing tool in section three. After this, in section four, data is pre-
sented on a snapshot taken from a particular network of Facebook groups.
The snapshot is analysed in section 5 using the four pillars of crowdsourcing.
This is followed by the discussion and conclusion of the findings in sections
six and seven respectively.
2 Missing persons and social media
According to the “Missing persons: A handbook for parliamentarians” [3], a
missing person is defined as an “individuals of whom their families have no
news and/or who, on the basis of reliable information, have been reported
missing…” With the advent of technology, one would intuitively assume that
the search for missing persons will be made easier. However, that is not al-
ways the case. Missing Children SA representative says that “Every year we
see our success rate decrease. It’s not necessarily because we’re finding less
people, it’s just because more people are hearing about the service that
“Missing Children SA” provides” [6].
Missing persons is a societal problem that extends beyond finding the miss-
ing person. Support to the families of the missing person is also important.
According to Wayland [7] the police and non-police search agencies are the
primary support mechanisms for the family members as the “the initial focus
is on the physical location and return of the missing person and the emo-
tional needs of the family are often set aside while these practical issues are
dealt with”. Social media can extend support to families of missing person by
rendering emotional support. Johnson et al [8] state that when people are
embedded in a caring network, such as a Facebook community dedicated to
the search of finding missing people, they are able to obtain social resources,
such as instrumental and emotional support, to cope with daily stress or un-
certainty. This is extended by Wang and Nayir [9] that stated informal and
formal social networks, such as Facebook communities, offer access to re-
sources, to social and emotional support and to practical help for coping with
personal, economic and social problems.
3 Crowdsourcing
Hosseini et al [10] identify four parts (or pillars) of crowdsourcing that de-
scribes the entire operation: (1) The crowd: describing the diversity of the
people who take part in the crowdsourcing activity, whether they are known
to the crowdsource or each other, whether they are enough to fulfil the task
without being overloaded, how they were involved to take part and whether
they are willing and able to take part, (2) The Crowdsourcer: the person or
organisation that needs the help of the crowd to solve a problem The crowd-
sourcer might rely on intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, extending the call to
participate to the general public in an ethical way. (3) The Crowd-sourced
task: This recognises the traditional way the task would have been complet-
ed if crowdsourcing did not occur as well as the complexity, solvability, abil-
ity to automate, the role of the crowd and the type of contribution made by
the crowd. (4) The Crowdsourcing Platform: This refers to the interaction
between the crowd and the platform such as social media, the interaction
between the crowdsourcer and the platform, the functionalities provided by
the platform.
There are a number of existing crowdsourcing tools that use social media to
reach the crowd. One such an example is Ushahidi, an open source crises
map platform, which was used for disaster relief during the earthquake in
Haiti [11]. Rahwan et al [12] explain how they used social media to
crowdsource rapid information gathering in order to find five wanted per-
sons during a manhunt challenge. Their biggest challenge was to mobilize
participants to share messages. Gao [11:12] found that during disaster relief,
social media as crowdsourcing mechanism provides “aggregate situational
awareness, important and new communications pathways, and some oppor-
tunities for assistance on an individual level.”
4 Method
On the 7th of March 2016, the lead researcher typed in “Missing people” in
Facebook search engine. The first public South African Facebook group dedi-
cated to locating missing people, was identified as “Missing People in Centu-
rion” (MPC). The lead researcher then considered every post of the MPC Fa-
cebook group between 7 March 2016 and 1 October 2015, giving her approx-
imately 6 months’ posts to analyse. Table 1 below illustrates the data cap-
tured during the first search iteration.
Table 1. Data captured from first Facebook community
For every Facebook community with its accompanying posts, she captured
the following information in an MS Excel spreadsheet, (as illustrated by Table
1 above, which represents the data captured for the first Facebook commu-
nity reviewed): (1) The group the post originated from (column B). An acro-
AB
MPC Missing people in Centurion 689 members
Groups Posted
PL The Pink Ladies FC MC FA MC FA MC FA FCD FC FA FC FA FC MC MC MA MC FC MA
Hi5Kids Hi5 Kids recovery MC FC FC
MCSA Missing Children SA MC FA FA MC FC FA FC MC FC FC MA MA MA MA MA FA
NP-BVEN Ne wsPaper - Bedfordviewede nvalenews MC
SAPS South African Police Servi ces FCD
NP-RK NewsPaper - Rekord MA MA MA MA
NP-KM NewsPaper -Kormorant MC
NP-MM NewsP aper - Maroelamedia MC
PLC People who live i n centurion FA FA FA
BCPF Benoni CPF MC MC
Pvt Private Posts FA MA FA MA FA FA FA FC MA MA MC MA
KCF Krugersdorp Community forum MA
GPFW GPF Wilgehof MC
NP-MS New sPaper - Mobserver MC
CCC Centurion concerned citize ns FA FA MC
C
Posts
nym was assigned to each group in column A. (2) Each post that was distrib-
uted by each of the groups (column C). Distinction was made between posts
depending on whether it was an adult or child that was missing or found or
deceased. The following codes were used: a missing child (MC), a missing
adult (MA), child found (FC), found adult (FA). In a few instances the post
reported that a child was found deceased (FCD) or an adult was found de-
ceased (FAD). All duplicate posts from the same group were ignored. Finally,
the lead researcher then repeated the above steps for the six dedicated
“missing people” or community support Facebook groups that were listed in
the first group (Table 1, column B), excluding newspapers and private pages,
until saturation was reached (no new communities emerged).
5 Data Analysis
Table 2 below illustrates the data that was obtained from the Facebook re-
view. Seven Facebook communities dedicated to finding missing people or
community support communities were found, linked directly or indirectly to
the first Facebook group. In total, 392 posts were reviewed within the given
6 month timeframe. These Facebook communities were connected to a total
of 38 other communities (45 communities in total). Table 2 above summaris-
es all the communities reviewed where the size of the community is indicat-
ed by both the number of members/likes of the community, and the types
and number of posts distributed by each of these communities.
Table 2. Summary of Facebook Communities identified
Facebook Group/Page
name
Members
/likes
Connec-
tions
FA
FC
MA
MC
FCD
FAD
1. Missing people in Centu-
rion (MPC)
689 mem-
bers
15
18
11
17
19
2
0
2. Pink Ladies (PL)
28030 likes
0
5
7
95
31
0
0
3. Hi5 Kids Recovery (Hi5K)
9193 likes
3
2
7
3
1
1
0
4. Missing Children SA
(MCSA)
62621 likes
0
19
28
32
17
0
3
5. Benoni CPF (BCPF)
7468 mem-
bers
11
1
11
11
8
2*
3
6. People who live in Centu-
rion (PLC)
31556
members
11
1
3
6
2
2*
0
7. Centurion Concerned
Citizens (CCC)
24256 likes
5
13
7
3
0
1
0
The connectivity between the different Facebook communities is illustrated
by Figures 1 and 2 which represents the connections (and thereby the reach)
of the Facebook crowd. In Figure 1 each Facebook community is represented
by a node whereas each line represents a one-directional information flow
between two Facebook communities. The arrow points to the community
that shares the posts of the connected Facebook community. For example,
the Pink Ladies is dedicated to finding missing persons and can therefore be
seen as the originator of the posts. Indeed, Figure 1 shows that the Pink La-
dies (PL) has the most references (shared posts) by other communities, fol-
lowed by the Missing Children SA (MCSA) group who is also dedicated to
finding missing persons. The third most-shared posts originate from private
people (PVT) reporting missing people. This is indicated by the sizes of the
nodes.
Fig. 1. Originators of posts
Figure 2 illustrates a different kind of information flow. The lines of the graph
and size of the nodes now refers to the number of posts shared by that spe-
cific community of other communities. It further shows in Figure 2 that even
though PL’s posts were shared the most among different communities, PL
did not share any posts associated with other communities (within the re-
search period). Similarly, the posts of MCSA were widely shared, but MCSA
did not share any other communities’ posts on their page. Both these com-
munities’ nodes are therefore very small. However, the first Facebook group
reviewed by the researchers, MPC, shares a lot of posts of other communi-
ties as indicated by the size of the node. The second and third biggest sharer
of posts of other communities are PLC and BCPF. MPC is a community dedi-
cated to finding missing people whereas the PLC and BCPF are community
support groups.
Fig. 2. Distributors of posts
The maps provided in Figures 1 and 2 show the ‘enlarging of the search par-
ty’ across diverse geographic areas and thousands of people. It also shows
differentiated roles of the communities: some communities act mainly as
originators of the messages whereas others act more as distributors or end
points of the messages. The following sections will analyse the above Face-
book communities according to the four pillars of crowdsourcing as defined
by [10].
5.1 Pillar One: The Crowd
In this paper the crowd refers to the Facebook community members sharing
the posts of various Facebook communities (illustrated in Figure 2). Their
features are as follows: Diversity: The diversity needed in this crowd is from a
geographical perspective. This was indeed reached since the initial group
reviewed by the researchers is situated in Gauteng, South Africa, but posts as
far as Kraaifontein in the Western Cape Province some 1000km from Gaut-
eng, were identified. Unknownness: Due to the nature of Facebook, the
crowd will inevitably know about one another as anyone can have at least
limited access to anyone’s profile. However, the aim of this exercise is not
anonymity but is in support of the crowdsourcer’s task. In the majority of
instances the missing person post/update was made by the specific Face-
book community, as illustrated in Figure 1 above, only 10% of all the posts
under consideration (26 of 393 posts) were private posts. Largeness: The
largeness of the networked Facebook communities, is what makes the Face-
book platform so successful in finding missing people. Table 2 above illus-
trates, that between the communities under consideration, there is a crowd
of 163 813 Facebook users that would be able to assist in the quest to find
missing people. Undefined-ness: The vast amount of Facebook users is an
illustration of the undefined-ness of the Facebook social network. All of the
groups, bar the private posts, were public groups which allowed anyone ac-
cess to their postings. Suitability: The Facebook communities referenced in
this study all voluntarily participated in solving the “missing people” problem
by posting the “missing people” information, or share the posted infor-
mation. The number of communities referenced by particular communities is
an illustration of their ability to collaborate with other communities and indi-
viduals. The Facebook communities’ motivations are all intrinsic as no incen-
tive, bar the possibility of locating the missing person is provided.
5.2 Pillar Two: The Crowdsourcer
In this paper the crowdsourcer refers to the Facebook communities and
community members (in terms of private posts) who provide the posts of
missing persons (illustrated in Figure 1). A missing person post usually in-
cludes personal details with a photo as well as contact details of the authori-
ties and a contact number of the missing persons community representative.
The features of the crowdsourcer in this context are as follows: Incentive
provision: There was no need for the crowdsourcers (the different communi-
ties listed in Table 2 or the private posts) to provide any incentives for “the
crowd” to participate in posting or sharing missing people information. Open
Call: As all the groups were public groups, it was open for any member of
the public to participate in the posting or sharing of missing people. Ethicality
provision: At any stage can a member of “the crowd” choose not to partici-
pate, or even “opt-out” of the Facebook group by unfollowing the page or
removing themselves from the group. Furthermore, the crowdsourcer is eth-
ically bound to provide feedback to “the crowd”. From Table 2 it is seen that
updates were made where available. Privacy provision: Due to the nature of
Facebook it is near impossible for “the crowd” not to be aware of one anoth-
er. However, it is possible for the crowd to private message the crowd-
sourcer, which the crowdsource is not allowed to disclose to others.
5.3 Pillar Three: The Crowdsourced Task
In this paper the crowdsourced task refers to the activity of locating missing
people. There features are as follows: Traditional operation: The missing
people’s communities work in conjunction with the authorities to locate the
missing persons. In most cases, if the missing person’s notice is released
through a missing person’s community (such as MCSA or PL) a police docket
number is included (if available)). This allows for the traditional operations to
continue parallel with the community’s crowdsourcing initiative. Modularity:
Although a number of posts can be posted daily regarding missing people, it
is done one by one. Therefore, “the crowd” can choose the post which they
would like to share. Complexity: Task of sharing a Facebook post is quite
straightforward and the community was quick to assist if someone had trou-
ble sharing a post. Solvability: Unfortunately, the act of sharing a post does
not necessarily result in solving the missing person problem. However, a sec-
ondary activity of the ability to support the crowdsourcer emotionally (espe-
cially if it is a private post) can be seen as solving the emotional isolation
problem. An example of this is a message posted on MPC (Missing Persons in
Centurion): “Morning all, my brother has been missing for 2 weeks now. I
ask that we all pray for his safe return where ever he might be, also if anyone
knows or have seen him please contact me at this number” on which MPC
replied: “Hi, why don’t we all just reshare this and ask our contacts to share
so the word spreads more and more”. Automation Characteristics: The na-
ture of Facebook allows for a measure of automation. Once a Facebook user
“follows” a group he/she will automatically receive the post from the group
(the crowdsourcer), however, the act of further sharing it is not automated.
Furthermore, this is an inexpensive method of automation. User-driven: The
particular problem that is attempted to be solved through “the crowd” is
creating awareness and finding missing people. This is problem solving activi-
ty but also an example of an innovative way of using technology. Contribu-
tion Type: The Facebook communities allow for both an individual and col-
laborative contribution. Collectively the various communities are working
together to find missing people. However, on an individual level, a communi-
ty member renders support to the crowdsourcer (in the event of an individu-
al/private post).
5.4 Pillar Four: The Crowdsourcing Platform
In this paper the crowdsourcing platform refers to Facebook. Its features are
as follows: Crowd-related Interactions: Facebook as the chosen crowdsourc-
ing platform in this instance provides clear mechanisms for enrolment and
authentication (as far as user profiles are legitimate). In certain instances,
especially when it’s a private post, the community members were asked to
share the missing person’s details, however, in formal missing person’s
posts, the communities spontaneously shared posts without being “tasked”
to do it. Crowdsourcer-related Interactions: The crowdsourcer in this study
took two forms: dedicated missing people group administrators who gener-
ate and co-ordinate posts regarding missing people as illustrated in Figure 1
above and secondly, individuals sharing private posts (usually about some-
one close to them) being missing. In both these instances, Facebook has clear
rules in place regarding privileges of users and administrators. Task-related
Facilities: The communities provided no restriction on the sharing of posts
regarding missing people. Furthermore, the crowdsourcers (not in the case
of private posts) usually work closely with the authorities in order to ensure
the authentication of the “task”. Platform-related Facilities: The online plat-
form provided by Facebook is governed by the Facebook terms and condi-
tions. Furthermore, the nature of Facebook allows the crowd to easily inter-
act with the crowdsourcer.
6 Discussion
The discussion above illustrates the value of the concept “crowdsourcing” in
reaching an understanding of the way in which Facebook is used to find miss-
ing persons. Certain members and Facebook communities in the network act
as the “crowd” (Figure 2) whereas others act as the crowdsourcers (Figure 1)
who have a specific task – finding missing people. The crowdsourcing plat-
form is Facebook. Using crowdsourcing as analytical lens also shows the
shortfall of using Facebook in the quest to find missing persons. Gao et al
[11] believe that social media as crowdsourcing tool lacks inherent coordina-
tion capabilities when used for disaster relief. Although the phenomenon of
missing persons cannot be considered a disaster, there are similarities in the
processes needed to react to the disaster and to find missing persons: there
is a need to not only share but also coordinate information among different
groups and organisations. We have found evidence of close cooperation be-
tween the missing persons groups and the police in some of the posts. This
means that Facebook is used not only as a way of mobilising crowds (sharing
messages) in this context. We therefore believe that if authorities use social
media in a more focused and coordinated way, or combine it with existing
crowdsourcing tools, the “power of the crowd” can truly be realised in the
search for missing persons. Despite the fact that “the crowd” might not liter-
ally result in the locating of a missing person (only two posts made reference
to the locating of a missing person through the actions of the “the crowd”),
the crowd seems to be effective in other ways. It renders emotional support
to the crowdsourcer. Technological advances, such as the Internet, have cre-
ated new opportunities for social interaction and support among community
members [13]. The Internet supplements the traditional operations of locat-
ing a missing person – through the processes of authorities and at the same
time extend emotional support to the crowdsourcers individually and collab-
oratively.
7 Conclusion
This research paper aims to understand how Facebook is used in the quest of
locating missing persons. Crowdsourcing is used as analytical lens and ex-
plains the interaction between communities indicated in the graphs as those
of the crowdsourcer (Figure 1) and those of the crowd (Figure 2). It further
illustrates the “powerful propagation capability” [11] of Facebook as crowd-
sourcing platform. It also points towards the necessity of a more coordinated
effort in order to realise the benefit of Facebook as crowdsourcing platform.
This might imply an expansion of the traditional search processes by authori-
ties to officially include social media. In addition, it is argued that this net-
work of communities act not only as a massive search party but also as a
source of emotional support. This study can be seen as exploratory in the
sense that it included data from a short time period. More research is need-
ed to apply current research on crowd-sourcing to such systems to under-
stand and improve its effectiveness.
8 References
1. A child goes missing every five hours in SA – MCSA, 4 June 2015
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/A-child-goes-missing-every-five-hours-in-SA-
MCSA-20150604
2. 4,432,880 Missing Persons Vanished In Past 20 Years Monday, 26 August 2013, 11:20 In
Press Release: International Rewards Centre-
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1308/S00441/4432880-missing-persons-vanished-in-
past-20-years.htm
3. Missing persons: A handbook for Parliamentarians, Number 17. 2009.
http://www.ipu.org/PDF/publications/missing09-e.pdf
4. “South African Social Media Landscape 2014.” 2014.
http://www.worldwideworx.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Exec-Summary-Social-
Media-2014.pdf
5. Howe, J. 2006. The rise of crowdsourcing. Wired. Issue 14.06 – June 2006.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html
6. NGO helps find more than 450 missing people, 22 December 2015
http://ewn.co.za/2015/12/22/NGO-helps-find-more-than-450-missing-persons
7. Wayland, S. 2009. Supporting those who are left behind.
http://www.missingpersons.gov.au/~/media/mp/files/pdfs/supporting%20those%20who
%20are%20left%20behind.pdf
8. Johnson, E. C., Kristof-Brown, A. L., Van Vianen, A. E., De Pater, I. E., & Klein, M. R. (2003).
Expatriate social ties: Personality antecedents and consequences for adjustment.
International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 11(4), 277-288.
9. Wang, X., & Nayir, D. (2006). How and when is social networking important? Comparing
European expatriate adjustment in China and Turkey. Journal of International
Managmeent, 12, 449-472.
10. Hosseini, M.; Phalp, K.; Taylor, J. and Ali, R, "The four pillars of crowdsourcing: A refer-
ence model," Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS), 2014 IEEE Eighth Interna-
tional Conference on, Marrakech, 2014, pp. 1-12. doi: 10.1109/RCIS.2014.6861072
11. Gao, H; Barbier, G and Goolsby, R. 2011. Harnessing the Crowdsourcing Power of Social
Media for Disaster Relief. IEEE Intelligent Systems, May/June 2011.
12. Rahwan, I, Dsouza, S., Rutherford, A., Naroditskiy, V., McInerney, J., Venanzi, M.,
Jennings, N.R. and Cebrian, M. (2013). Global Manhunt Pushes the Limits of Social
Mobilization. Computer, 46(6), 68-75.
13. Sarason, I., & Sarason, B. (2009). Social support: Mapping the construct. Journal of Social
and Personal Relationships, 26(1), 113-120.
