Zuckerberg confirms policy of monitoring Messenger

Facebook scans the links and images that people send each other on Facebook Messenger, and reads chats when they are flagged to moderators, making sure the content abides by the company’s rules.

If it does not, it gets blocked or taken down.

The company confirmed the practice earlier this week.

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told Vox’s Ezra Klein a story about receiving a phone call related to ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. Facebook had detected people trying to send sensational messages through the Messenger app, he said.

“In that case, our systems detect what’s going on,” Mr Zuckerberg said. “We stop those messages from going through.”

Some people reacted with concern on Twitter: was Facebook reading messages more generally? Facebook has been under scrutiny in recent weeks over how it handles users’ private data and the revelation struck a nerve. Messenger does not use the data from the scanned messages for advertising, the company said, but the policy may extend beyond what Messenger users expect.

The company told Bloomberg that while Messenger conversations are private, Facebook scans them and uses the same tools to prevent abuse there that it does on the social network more generally. All content must abide by the same “community standards”.

People can report posts or messages for breaching standards, which would prompt a review by the “community operations” team. Automated tools can also do the work.

“For example, on Messenger, when you send a photo, our automated systems scan it using photo-matching technology to detect known child exploitation imagery or when you send a link, we scan it for malware or viruses,” a spokeswoman said. “Facebook designed these tools so we can rapidly stop abusive behaviour.”