From PC World: Facebook and Instagram have a problem. Well, they have many, many problems, but one of the ones they feel like addressing is “celeb-bait ads and impersonation.” According to a new post from parent company Meta, the way they’re going to try solving this is through the use of facial recognition technology. Again. Woo.
In the lengthy post, Meta explains that the biggest impact of these new tools will be an expanded effort to stop scam accounts from impersonating celebrities. If you’ve used Facebook in the last year or so, you’ve probably encountered friend suggestions for attractive celebrities, which are obvious fakes that can be identified by their paparazzi photos and deliberate misspellings of their names.
Now when Meta spots these impersonations, which are typically shilling spam or attempting to phish info out of unwary users, it’ll employ facial recognition to compare them to their relevant celebrity’s (real) Facebook or Instagram account. It’ll be expanded to advertising, too, though the system will be automated (like almost everything on social media).
Fine. That seems like a worthwhile application of this problematic tech. But what about if someone manages to hack your legitimate Facebook or Instagram account? Or you forget your password and lose access to your email account? Currently, you need to plead your case to Meta’s support team by uploading some form of official ID. But the company is now testing a system where you can upload a video selfie instead, with facial recognition comparing you to your stored photos.
View: Full Article
