Has a missing child ever been found as a result of Facebook shares?

[StealthPolarBear]

Just to be clear, I have no issues with people doing this, it's not a criticism. If my child was missing I'd do anything to get them back. Im just wondering if any have ever been successful? Three or four local children have gone missing recently, there seems to be a new one to share every week :(

Yes loads on our local one have been found as a result.

I don’t know the answer to your question but I’d advise only sharing Police appeals. Sad as it is sometimes children are separated from their families for good reason.

Good point and that does cross my mind but I do feel so sorry for the people involved.

Good to hear cluedo - so someone who recognises them from fb calls the police?

I've wondered this too.

We had one on our local page with a screenshot saying the boy had left school and hadn't come home. No details, dates/location. Looked really unhelpful tbh.

I was shocked to see my friend's niece on a missing child post on Facebook recently. She is 14 and had left school at 10am and was up on Facebook by 5pm, with hundreds of shares.
She was spotted at 7pm by someone who had seen her picture and messaged her family.

How would you ever know the answer to this OP? It would mean the person/people who reported they had seen the child also stated to the police they recognised them from a FB share and then the police would have to divulge that information to the public. Which they don’t. So there is no way of knowing unless an individual publicly announces that they were the one who spotted the child and it was due to FB.

Probably not when the posts are from years ago! The ones I see of missing people/camera separated from people etc and the original date was several years ago.
I think only sharing police ones is wise - they are probably very careful about what details they do and don't reveal

Never seen anything come out of the ones shared round here but I don’t think the family should feel obliged to update.

The privacy thing worries me. A gorgeous clever 12 year old I know ran away to meet at older boy (man ) she met on the internet a few months ago. The police found her safe and well. Brilliant.

But it was on hundreds if not thousands of people’s FB and she will presumably forever be searchable on this one event.

Quite a few teens seem to be found this way in our area. There seems to be a bit of a habit of a few that leave school and decide to wander off for the evening/ night/weekend without telling their parents where they are going.

I wouldn't, which is why I'm asking. People who are involved are likely to know the story

Crocky as the parent of a 12yo that terrifies me!

FB sharing is just the equivalent of missing person flyers being stapled to lampposts. It just has a far wider audience. I don’t see why you think it would never lead to a child being found.

Completely agree family shouldn't feel obliged to update, although just saying that the child is back is much appreciated. I love it when I go to share one and see that in comments

I'm pretty sure the police would suggest to the family putting an appeal on Facebook if their child went missing, given the possibility they could actually be with one of those Facebook friends.

@Cleudoaddict where do you live that loads of children go missing and are found via FB?

And how come you know the results of these searches?

Stealth me too. Still no way of knowing if it was FB or the normal police stuff, but home safe and well is wonderful

FB sharing is just the equivalent of missing person flyers being stapled to lampposts. It just has a far wider audience. I don’t see why you think it would never lead to a child being found

Much riskier though I’d have thought, so it’s not unreasonable to weigh up whether the benefits outweigh that risk.

Oh yes, true name. I only share the PSNI ones and they delete them once the missing person is found so I’m not sharing anything the police haven’t shared and it’s also not visible once the police delete it.

I always think, unless I actually know the person, I’m unlikely to be able to identify them on the street from seeing their photo on Facebook the day before. Or be able to say I saw them at xyz earlier that day, unless they were behaving in a way that drew attention to themselves!

Yes very true. But I am very observant. I shared one of a missing boy this morning. I wouldn't recognise him. I suppose if I saw someone like him in an odd situation I'd be slightly more alert than usual which can only be a good thing

Oh yes, true name. I only share the PSNI ones and they delete them once the missing person is found so I’m not sharing anything the police haven’t shared and it’s also not visible once the police delete it

Really sensible. Unfortunately maybe a quarter of the ones I see are those, and it does worry me because god knows we all did some daft stuff as teenagers that doesn’t need to hang around online for ever! Plus the obvious safeguarding stuff.

I have a friend who regularly moves around and changes her name to escape from her family, pimps and drug dealers. Every now and then a post pops up from her family or a pimp pretending to be a brother etc. If someone thinking they were helping outed her, the consequences would be dire. Every time I see one, especially of a young girl or boy, I do worry about the full story.

Although this happened when I was still at school, a girl had fallen asleep when she got in and rolled down the side of the bed. Came downstairs laughing at herself for falling out of bed oblivious to her parents having phoned the police and half the city knew about it from the post they had put out

I always think it's worth a try, puts me in mind if the Robert Black arrest. Sometimes things just fall right.
From wiki..
Black was arrested in Stow on 14 July 1990. David Herkes, a 53-year-old retired postmaster, was mowing his front garden when he saw a blue Transit van slow to a standstill across the road. The driver exited the van—ostensibly to clean his windscreen—as the six-year-old daughter of Herkes' neighbour passed his field of view. As Herkes stooped to clear cuttings from his lawnmower, he saw the girl's feet lifting from the pavement; he then straightened himself to observe the vehicle's driver hastily pushing something through the passenger door before clambering across to the driver's seat, closing the passenger door, and starting the engine.[98]

Realising he had witnessed an abduction, Herkes noted the registration number of the van as it sped away.[86] Herkes ran to the girl's home; the girl's mother called police.[99]

Within minutes, six police vehicles had arrived in the village.[100] As Herkes described the van to officers, he observed it driving in their direction and exclaimed, "That's him! That's the same van!"[101] An officer jumped in the van's path, forcing it to halt. Police removed the driver from his seat and handcuffed him.[102]

One of the officers, who was the father of the abducted girl,[100] opened the rear of the van and clambered inside, calling his daughter's name.[100] Seeing movement in a sleeping bag,[103]}} he untied its drawstring to discover his daughter inside, her wrists bound behind her back, her legs tied together, her mouth bound and gagged with sticking plaster, and a hood tied over her head.[104]

TheQueef that is amazing. I wish we could all be that observant.