Facebook Safety Check scares Bangkok residents with false report of major explosion

Facebook is warning people about a fake explosion in Bangkok, falsely suggesting that the entire city is at risk. The site has activated its "Safety Check" feature across Thailand's capital. That means that anyone it thinks is in the area will see a message informing them that there has been "an explosion", and encouraging them to mark themselves safe from it. But no such explosion actually happened and the fake alert seems to be the result of changes that the company has made to its Safety Check feature. It appears to have been activated by a minor incident, reported only in the local news, where a man took firecrackers to a government building in an apparent protest.