Facebook checks for impersonating accounts within friend circle
San Francisco, May 6: Facebook has admitted that it mostly looks for impostors -- who use a user's photo as their profile pictures -- only among friends and friends of friends, a media report said.
According to The Washington Post, Facebook said that it does compare profile photos against millions of other users', but it did not reveal a specific number.
"We use new technologies to protect people on Facebook and we are often able to improve as we roll them out," Facebook spokesman Matt Steinfeld said.
"In the early days of this feature, we are focused on alerting people to new and recent photos posted by their friends and friends of their friends. We hope to improve how we use this technology over time."
It also did not disclose how it chooses which accounts to compare against and sometimes it disables people's real accounts instead.
The social media giant recently launched "Face Recognition" feature that said that switching it on can "help protect you from strangers using a photo of you as their profile picture".
The company believes that there were as many as 87 million fake accounts as of last quarter, which is nearly five times as many as the 18 million fakes on the website back in 2016.
Facebook said the increase was due to "episodic spikes" in fake account creation in countries such as Indonesia, Turkey and Vietnam.
Although Facebook has done a lot of work in face recognition and other Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools as its weapons to combat political propaganda, hate speech and misinformation, the company was struggling to use the technology to connect real people around the world.
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SC junks plea for extension of time to file nomination from Varanasi LS seat
New Delhi, May 15: The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to entertain a Tamil Nadu-based farmer leader's plea for an extension of deadline for filing nomination papers to contest from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in the fray, decrying the petition as "publicity interest litigation".
The prime minister filed his nomination papers from Varanasi parliamentary constituency on May 14, the last day for filing the papers, as a BJP candidate. The polling will take place on June 1.
"You want to withdraw, we can allow you to withdraw. If you want us to dismiss, we can dismiss it. These are all Publicity Interest Litigation,” a bench comprising justices Vikram Nath and Satish Chandra Sharma said.
Lawyer S Mahendran, appearing for P Ayyakannu, a native of Trichy in Tamil Nadu and President of the National South Indian River Interlinking Agriculturist Association, claimed that Ayyakannu was de-boarded from the Varanasi-bound train on May 10 by the railway security personnel when he was on his way to file nomination from the seat.
He said that even the prime minister filed his nomination papers on the last day and urged the court to ask the poll panel to extend the time for the same.
During the brief hearing, the bench asked as to why Ayyakannu wanted to contest from Varanasi and said the whole purpose of the petition seemed to get publicity.
