Facebook unveils harassment tools as social giants accused of hateful profit

Facebook has introduced new tools to prevent harassment on the social media site and its Messenger platform.

Users can choose to ignore a message request and see it automatically removed from their Messenger inbox, the social media giant said. The site will also “proactively recognise” and prevent blocked users from making contact through another account.

The announcement came yesterday on the day executives from the social network, as well as Twitter and Google, were heavily criticised by MPS on the Commons home affairs select committee. The technology firms were accused of profiting from hateful content on their platforms and failing to effectively act in the removal of abusive content.

Facebook’s global head of safety Antigone Davis said: “We’ve heard stories from people who have blocked someone only to encounter the same harasser using a different account.

“In order to help prevent those bad encounters, we are building on existing features that prevent fake and inauthentic accounts on Facebook.

“These automated features help us identify fake accounts more quickly ... we are now using various signals like an IP address to help us proactively recognise this type of account and prevent its owner from sending a message or friend request to the person who blocked the original account.”

Users of the Messenger app will also be able to ignore and filter out conversations from users they do not wish to interact with. “If someone is being harassed, blocking the abuser sometimes prompts additional harassment, particularly offline,” Ms Davis said.

“Now you can tap on a message to ignore the conversation. This disables notifications and moves the conversation from your inbox.”