Face book scans the chats and pictures that individuals send one another on Face book messengers, ensuring it all abides by the company’s rules governing content. If it does not, it gets blocked.
The company confirmed the apply once associate degree interview printed earlier in the week with Chief Executive officer Mark Zuckerberg raised questions on Messenger’s practices and privacy. Zuckerberg told Vox’s Ezra Klein a story regarding receiving a telephone call associated with group action in Asian nation. Facebook had detected folks attempting to send sensational messages through the traveller app, he said.
“In that case, our systems notice what is going on on,” Zuckerberg aforementioned. “We stop those messages from longing.”Some individuals reacted concernedly on Twitter: Was Face book reading messages a lot of generally? Face book has been below scrutiny in recent weeks over however it handles users’ non-public knowledge and therefore the revelation smitten a nerve. Courier does not use the information from the scanned messages for advertising, the corporate aforesaid; however the policy might extend on the far side what courier users expect.
The company told Bloomberg that whereas courier conversations area unit non-public, Face book scans them and uses equivalent tools to stop abuse there that it will on the social network a lot of typically. All content should abide by an equivalent “community standards.” individuals will report posts or messages for violating those standards, which might prompt a review by the company’s “community operations” team. Automatic tools may do the work.
“For example, on courier, once you send a photograph, our automatic systems scan it victimization image matching technology to sight legendary kid exploitation representational process or once you send a link, we have a tendency to scan it for malware or viruses,” a Face book Messenger spokeswoman said in a statement. “Face book designed these automated tools so we can rapidly stop abusive behavior on our platform.”
Messenger accustomed be a part of Face book’s main service, before it had been spun off into a separate application in 2014. Face book’s different major chat app, WhatsApp, encrypts each ends of its users’ communications, in order that not even WhatsApp will see it — a truth that is created it safer for users, and harder for lawmakers wanting info in investigations. traveler conjointly has AN encrypted possibility, however users ought to flip it on.
The company updated its information policy and projected new terms of service on Wed to clarify that traveler and Instagram use constant rules as Face book will. “We higher justify however we have a tendency to combat abuse and investigate suspicious activity, as well as by analyzing the content folks share,” Face book aforesaid in a very web log post.
Face book is on the defensive after revelations that private information from about 50 million users wound up in the hands of political ad-data firm Cambridge Analytic without their consent. Zuckerberg has agreed to testify before the House next week and is holding a conference call on Wednesday afternoon to discuss changes to face book privacy policies.
COMMENTS The company is working to make its privacy policies clearer, but still ends up with gaps between what it says users have agreed to, and what users think they actually agreed to.
The Messenger scanning systems “are very similar to those that other internet companies use today,” the company said.