Meta wants to to stop celebrity scam ads on Facebook, Instagram, here's how

Meta

Be it Facebook, Instagram or any other social media platform, scam ads are quite rampant. The advent of AI has ushered in more celebrity scam ads than before. Meta says that it plans to counter the scam ads. The tech giant is testing the use of facial recognition technology to help protect people from celeb-bait ads and enable faster account recovery.

Meta has an ad review system that uses automated technology and machine learning capabilities to look at millions of ads, including analysis of the different components of an ad, such as the text, image or videos.

Facial recognition to the rescue

The new review system will detect celebrity-linked scams. “If our systems suspect that an ad may be a scam that contains the image of a public figure at risk for celeb-bait, we will try to use facial recognition technology to compare faces in the ad to the public figure’s Facebook and Instagram profile pictures,” said Meta.

In case Meta finds out that ad is a scam and facial recognition determines that, then the ad will be blocked. “We immediately delete any facial data generated from ads for this one-time comparison, regardless of whether our system finds a match, and we don’t use it for any other purpose,” Meta explained.

That’s not all. Meta says that there are a lot of fake, impostor celebrity accounts that end up scamming people. Meta currently relies on detection systems and user reports to help identify potential impersonators. Meta is planning to ad facial recognition tech to compare profile pictures on the suspicious account to a public figure’s Facebook and Instagram profile pictures.

“We’re just as determined to stay ahead of them and will keep building and testing new technical defenses to strengthen our detection and enforcement capabilities,” Meta said on dealing with scammers.

Video selfies to recover accounts

Many times people lose access to their Facebook, Instagram account when they forget their password, lose their device or are tricked into turning their password over to a scammer. Meta is now testing video selfies as a means for people to verify their identity and regain access to compromised accounts. The user will upload a video selfie and we’ll use facial recognition technology to compare the selfie to the profile pictures on the account they’re trying to access.