Facebook is currently testing a new feature in order to fight back against trolls that impersonate profile pages, British newspaper the Mirror reported on Wednesday.
Facebook is perfecting a program which will automatically search for profiles containing identical names and pictures of actual users, according to the newspaper, and consequently the social network will notify users about the imposter.
If the user suddenly finds an alert from the social network that his/her account is being targeted, the user can flag it to a dedicated team at the company, who are tasked with “removing this nastiness,” according to the British newspaper.
“While impersonation isn’t necessarily a widespread problem on Facebook, it is a source of harassment on the platform, despite the company’s longstanding policy against it,” the Mirror quoted tech site Mashable.
The newspaper also cited Antigone Davis, Facebook’s head of global safety, as saying: “It’s a real point of concern for some women in certain regions of the world where (impersonation) may have certain cultural or social ramifications.”
Facebook, which has 1.6 billion active users worldwide, confirmed it has been testing this feature since November; however, it is still gathering more feedback and research before launching it.
