Facebook is developing a new tool that will help to detect fake profiles on social media. The goal is to fight online harassment on the world's largest social network by sending an alert if someone is impersonating the real Facebook account holder. Impersonation Checkpoint will search for fake profiles with someone's name and photo by asking them to identify if it is a fake account or someone with the same name.
The photo check feature is like Facebook's privacy dinosaur that helped the social network's users to examine their privacy settings. One goal of the new tool is educate Facebook users about who can view their images.
Facebook will also use a manual check to review profiles that get a red flag as being imposters, according to Tech Radar. It will help to make sure that a non-duplicate account is not shut down.
The new tool is not brand new and in fact the social network started doing limited testing in November 2015.
However, Facebook has been holding global discussions during the past week about how to boost the social network's security and privacy. Feedback it received shows that the Impersonation Checkpoint tool has been launched in three-quarters of the world.
Facebook's Head of Global Safety Antigone Davis told Mashable that impersonation is a major issue for women in some regions of the world. That is because fake accounts could have social or cultural results.
Facebook has other security issues that are more widespread. However, it has had a long-term policy against impersonation, which is included in the social giant's names policy requiring people to use their real name, according to Mashable.
It is unclear where the new tool has been launched and which profile features it checks to pick up an imposter account. However, people can still report possible phony accounts to Facebook's Help Center.
Last December Facebook announced it was making big changes to its real name policy. A new system includes support for non-Western names, LGBT issues, and cases of stalking or abuse. The goal of the system is to filter out most false reports, and then provide more human help for complaints about fake names.
This video takes up Facebook's change of real name policy: