Facebook Messenger will now warn you if you are communicating with a potential scammer
Facebook on Thursday said that its Messenger app will be watching behind the scenes for scammers using the smartphone communication system.
Safety notices will pop up in Messenger text chats if activity occurring in the background is regarded as suspicious by artificial intelligence software, according to director of privacy and safety product management Jay Sullivan.
He said the new safety feature “can help millions of people avoid potentially harmful interactions and possible scams without compromising their privacy.”
The feature began rolling out to the Messenger app tailored for Android-powered smartphones in March and will check out Messenger on iPhones next week, according to Facebook.
“Too often people connect to someone online they think they know or trust, when it’s a really scammer or imposter,” Sullivan said.
“These accounts could be hard to identify initially and the results could be costly.”
Artificial intelligence software scans for scammers based on account behavior, such as sending messages in bulk targeting demographics or geographies, according to Facebook.
Warning notices pop-up before people react to messages of possibly dubious origins.
Since the feature does not involve looking at what's in messages, it should continue to put in a layer of safety when Messenger takes to encrypted missives as planned by Facebook.
“As we move to end-to-end encryption, we are buying privacy-preserving tools such as this to keep people safe without accessing message content,” Sullivan said.
Messenger already uses software tools to fight spam and thwart efforts by adults to contact minors they don’t may actually know.
Messenger has been ramping up features and security as make use of online tools to communicate and socialize surges because of restrictions of movement through the pandemic.
Facebook recently unveiled a fresh video chat service with virtual “rooms” where persons can pop in to go to friends, aiming at users turning to the popular Zoom platform during the pandemic.
