“ Our face recognition setting lets you manage not only whether Facebook uses face recognition technology on your photos in order to suggest tag; it provides you an easy on or off switch for a broader set of uses of face recognition, such as helping you protect your identity on Facebook”, this was written by Srinivas Narayanan, Applied Research Lead, Facebook AI.

These suggest tag feature, powered by automated facial recognition, was activated for all social media users by default in 2011. It was then stopped in the EU in 2012 over privacy concerns, but facebook again activated in 2013 and in 2017 a user was actively notified when a photo of them was uploaded, which was a matter of worry as it could open the doors for harassment. Now onwards this feature of facial recognition will be turned off by default and you will also be notified regarding the same in your news feed where you can also turn it on but only if you want it. Following these, the notice will also include information surrounding the new features and options to help users to learn more about how Facebook implements face recognition. In case if you don’t have this setting currently then Facebook will not use face recognition to recognize you or suggest tags. Some other features also included in this like Photo Review that notifies you when you appear in photos even if you are not tagged will also stay deactivated until you feel it turning it on. You can always spot new features in the Facebook setting Menu.

Narayanan further said about this topic and added: ” We’ve continued to engage with privacy experts, academics, regulators and people on Facebook about how we use face recognition and the options you have to control it”.

Also Read: How To Check Who Viewed My Facebook Profile

In the previous times, Facebook has received heavy backlash over privacy-related issues, this move by the tech giant of Facebook seems to be headed in the right direction. The new policy could also decrease the data of Facebook that it has gathered about users who don’t opt-in. The data doesn’t include only about the appearance of the user but also about the connections with other users. Recently one of the studies has found that a European privacy rule reduced the online effectiveness of advertising targeting by 65%. This makes a heavy impact on Facebook’s revenue as its primary source of revenue is this only but due to this, it has reduced the advertising sales. These new policies might reduce the number of notifications that opted-out users receive, possibly reducing the time spent on social media and in turn, it would lessen the amount of advertising they view.

Also Read: Facebook Blocks Third Party Ad Transparency & Monitoring Tools

Following this only last week, Apple also made a parallel decision to Siri voice recordings temporary by default, and ask users to opt-in to having them saved. Apple has always maintained its image as a more privacy-conscious alternative to the likes of Facebook and Google.

We are going to talk about some of the cool tricks with the help of which you will be able to know who all visited your profile. Facebook is the most commonly used social media platform, and people must be eager to know who is staring at their profiles, follow some simple steps and you will be able to know them. Keep in mind that the steps that are being discussed are no official ways that can be used to know about your timeline visitor.

Methods Through Which You Can Know Your Profile Visitors

1)Using “InitialChatFriendsList”

This is a source code method and it works really well, for using this method you will not need an extra app or software. All you need to do is to install a chromium-based internet browser with the help of which you will be able to view the source code page.

Steps:

• Open facebook.com in a browser tab, and then the screen appears where you have a login option, log in to your Facebook account.
• After the account is being opened, just right-click anywhere on the screen, the list appears and it contains an option as ‘View source page’. Click on that option and the coding page opens in a new tab.
• On this page, all you need to do is to find the wording ‘InitialChatFriendsList’, since the page is full of codes it will be quite difficult to find these words. So, simply press ctrl+f and the find dialogue box appears, type in the word that you need to find and press enter. The place where it is situated will be highlighted.

• Along with the word, there will be a list of profile ids in numbers of all recent profile visitors. To see which code belongs to which profile, in a new tab type facebook.com/”profile id”. After the slash feed in the numbers of a single profile and know the person who visited.

Also Read: Steps To Deactivate Facebook Messenger

2) Using Social Profile View Chrome Extension

Steps:

• After installing the extension to your browser all you need to do is open Facebook.com and log in to your account using credentials. When your account opens you will be able to see a blue navigation bar at the top of the screen and there you will also find a new option added which is “Visitors” Option.
• Every time a new person visits your profile you will receive a notification about the name of the person who visited your profile, the easiest way to know who is stalking you.

There is a drawback associated with this method, and it is that you might not be able to view all the profiles who visited your account and only the profiles of those can be viewed who also have this extension installed in their browsers. Alternatively, you can also see the visitors who are already using this extension.

Also Read:  Steps To Delete Paypal Account

These are just a few tricks with the help of which you will be able to know your profile visitors. Since, there are no official ways to check the details, some of such tricks can be used to reveal some stalkers. There are a couple of tricks that can be used as a substitute to above methods. Till then, try using the already discussed ones first and get to know some unexpected profile viewers. Hope the article is going to help you discover something new.

Facebook Ad Transparency Tool

• There are several key elections on the ballot this year and Facebook is going to be used for promotion as well as misinformation campaigns online. This is why there have been many ad transparencies and monitoring tools that have propped up on Facebook.
• These tools are put up by journalism websites like ProPublica and activists, who have developed the WhoTargetsMe tool on Facebook. These tools operate in such a way that they create a searchable database of political ads on the website. This is sourced from Facebook users who use custom plug-ins to report political ads to these databases.
• ProPublicas Facebook Political Ad Collector has collected over 120,000 political ads and displayed information related to those ads for users. Over 22,000 users actively use this plug-ins to flag such ads on Facebook for ProPublica. ProPublica used plug-ins to report political ad buying an ad-based discrimination on Facebook. It has been operating this database for the last two years since the American election of 2016.
• Similarly, monitoring tools like WhoTargetsMe have collected information about political ads and why specific ads are shown to specific users on Facebook. These tools stopped working some days ago and the activists found it very hard to get these tools back and working on Facebook.
• These third-party tools have been blocked by Facebook by obfuscating the code. Facebook inserted a code that prevents the use of web plug-ins that helps automate the collection of information from all over Facebook for such tools.

Facebooks Defense

• Facebook was severely criticized by many media agencies and international watchdogs for this move. It was a move that was seen to hamper transparency especially in a time when bad actors from all over the world are using Facebook to manipulate elections all over the world.
• Facebook put out a statement saying that plug-ins that can scrape ads can expose people information and this data can then be misused. Facebook says they have banned such plug-ins so that people’s data will not be misused in any way as protecting user’s data is very important to Facebook.
• Facebook believes this change has been initiated to deal with ad blockers, not about tools that research and abuse. Facebook says databases can be built like the transparency tool database, but for a negative reason.
• Databases targeting religion, race or any particular group can be built by governments just like the ad transparency database using such plug-ins by accessing personal information of users.
• Facebook is trying to provide an argument that user data safety is more important than transparency tool.

Also Read: Google Is Gradually Retiring Google Hangouts For G Suite Users

This has definitely come as a setback to activists and transparency organizations all over the world. Facebook has promised new steps to make ad buys more transparent and information more readily available to users. It was severely criticized by many governments in the past for its platform being misused in the past. There were reports of Facebook pages and ads that targeted voters in America which were paid for by foreign agents looking to interfere in the American election. Many elections in Europe were also targeted by foreign agents and misinformation campaigns were run just before election seasons in these countries. The world is a much divided place right now and Facebook is being used to further divide and alienate groups of people from each other. Facebook has an important role in the world today and has to be responsible for the content on its platform.

Android’s Google Play and Apple’s App Store both have Facebook Messenger apps for their users which are used to connect with Facebook friends through mobile phones. Facebook keeps upgrading and changing the design and features of its various platforms and usually new changes are announced at their annual conference. In last May, the Facebook F8 Developer conference took place and it was announced that Facebook is going to change the design on Facebook Messenger and gradually roll out the Facebook Messenger Redesign.

Facebook Messenger Redesign

• The redesign of Facebook Messenger has a simple chat client feature. This makes it easier for users to chat without distractions. There are only three tabs instead of nine tabs that were previously included in the design to give a simpler and easy to use look to Chat. This consolidation helps give a much cleaner look to Chats on Facebook Messenger.
• The three tabs that are included in the new feature of Facebook include one tab for a chat, one for contacts and one tab for games and chatbots. This makes surfing through the features of Facebook Messenger very user-friendly and easy.
• Though Bots, Games, and Reminders are still available on Facebook Messenger they can be hidden behind a new icon so that the user interface is much more simplistic and not crowded. All the functionality features of Facebook Messenger Chat will still be available but there will be no crowding of the features.
• Facebook has redesigned the user interface in such a way that there is a lot of white space in the design and there is no crowding of icons and features. It makes the user interface more effective and easy to use.
• The “favorites bar” is removed and Facebook Messenger shows a band of friends that Facebook thinks users would want to chat with on Messenger.
• The new redesign has an all-white aesthetic look and currently does not include a night mode feature. There are no new features and most of the old features have been retained by Facebook Messenger in the new redesign. However, the goal of the redesign is to make Facebook Messenger clearer, cleaner, and more easy to use for users on their mobile smartphones.

Partial Roll-Out of Facebook Messenger

Though select users were able to use the Facebook Messenger app with the new redesign in September, the larger rollout of this redesign to the public was kept under wraps. Many companies partially roll out their new redesign so that they can gauge public response and fix any possible problems that can arise out of the launch of the new redesign of the platform.

Facebook Messenger entered a prolonged rollout period for the Facebook Messenger redesign and now in 2019, Facebook has finally rolled out its Facebook messenger redesign to the entire market.

Also Read: Alphabet’s Verily Get FDA Clearance For Testing EKG Smart Watch

Facebook Messenger Redesign for All

The new Facebook Messenger is available on App Store for Apple Users and Google Play Store for Android smartphone users. Most updated iPhones and Android smartphones will be able to download the latest updated version of the Facebook Messenger.

Facebook has confirmed that the messenger service app with the latest redesign is available at all the operating system platforms. Facebook, however, added a caveat to this announcement. They say that it might take some time for everyone to get the new Facebook Messenger Redesign Update.

The reaction by the public on the whole to these new changes has been mixed. Most of the users are liking the fact that Facebook is trying to make design changes to make the messenger app more user-friendly. But some people resist change and like their chat as it was.

So like every other change, Facebook has made in the last 10 years, this change is also being criticized by some who liked the old version that they were more comfortable with. Facebook Messenger redesign is a major development in Facebook and now this change is available for all the users of Facebook.

Note:  “You can only deactivate your facebook messenger if you have deactivated your facebook account first”

Follow Steps  To Deactivate Facebook Messenger:

• Go to the facebook messenger app and start it.

• Click on profile picture icon

• Click on Legal& Policies

• Select Deactivate Messenger

• The app will ask the password so type it for confirmation.
• Then click the Deactivate button.

• After the deactivation, the session will be expired and the user automatically logs out of the account.

In order to reactivate the messenger, the user just has to start the app and enter his credentials. The messenger will again be activated. But in this process, a Facebook account will also be activated. If the user wants to keep the account deactivated, he will have to deactivate it again.

Also Read: Now You Can Post 3D Photos In Facebook Feed

Facebook Messenger app can be installed on mobile through Google play store. A user just has to go to play store and search for facebook messenger. When he finds that, he should just click it. The app will be automatically being downloaded and installed. After installing, the user should launch the messenger, enter his credentials of facebook account and start messaging.

The information that is needed to be given here is that not everyone would be able to use this feature. People who have phones with dual cameras can only use this function. After the picture is taken, the AI feature will be used by Facebook to paint the areas in the picture that is not done using the phone. This will construct an awesome 3D picture that one can post and have fun with.

People can for now look at these types of pictures. In the coming weeks, this function will be available and people can now use this feature easily. Presently, as we already told you that this facility is not available for every Facebook user. Only people with a dual camera phone can use it. According to the latest reports, the feature will be made available for more and more device. The aim is to make this special facility to be available for each and every Facebook user.

Also Read: Facebook Lite App Launched For IOS But Have Response Issue

There are also suggestions to get the best 3D pictures. It is said that pictures with sharp edges will appear best when Facebook 3D effect will be applied to them. There are many other hacks that are available to make the picture look perfect. One will learn about them as the feature will be available in a full-fledged manner.

Some people have found out some hacks to fix these problems. But it may or may not work. Facebook has not given any official notice about the app but according to some reports, it is working to fix the problems. One of the most common problems that are being noticed by the app is an error in loading the Images. If one tries to see the images on Facebook using Facebook Lite, either it takes forever to load or it will show ‘error’ message after every few seconds. No matter how much the users retry.

Also Read: Facebook, Instagram Introduce Time-Management Tool For Users

Another drawback with Facebook Lite app is that it is not supporting videos. This means no matter how small your video is, you just cannot upload videos at all.  Also, users will not be able to use advanced location services. This means that features like check-ins at hotels; restaurants etc will not be uploaded. Moreover, the location sharing is also a problem with this new app. You cannot message your location on personal chats as well. These are just the basic flaws which the users are encountering. We hope that the authorities fix them soon and users can finally use this app.