With online harassment becoming a serious issue by the day, social media company Facebook is working on a mechanism to help its users stop impersonation from the bud. It is testing a feature that will alert you if someone is impersonating you with a fake account, according to Mashable.
The new feature, which is still under testing, will help Facebook detect if another person is impersonating you by using your name and profile photo. The social network will then automatically alert you, wherein you will be asked to identify if the profile in question is a genuine or impersonating you by using your personal information. Notification process is automated, but Facebook team will manually review the profiles marked as impersonations.
The feature, if implemented, will help 1.59 billion Facebook users prevent a possible online harassment. Impersonation can cause mental torture to people, as content shared by the fake account holder can be of bad taste and people can mistake it for the real person.
Antigone Davis, Facebook's head of Global Safety, told Mashable that the feature, which has been under testing since November last year, is currently live in about 75 percent of the world and its availability will be expanded soon. He added that the move is an attempt by the company to make women feel safe on Facebook.
"We heard feedback prior to the roundtables and also at the roundtables that this was a point of concern for women," Davis told the website. "And it's a real point of concern for some women in certain regions of the world where it [impersonation] may have certain cultural or social ramifications."
Facebook's current privacy and safety policy requires people to use their authentic identities like providing the name they use in real life. Users can report if someone is impersonating them, but they can do so only when they come across such fake account until now.
