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Facebook Is Testing a Feature to Tell You If That DM Came from Russia

Facebook has faced a wave of misinformation and scam campaigns. Users may soon have more information about that unsolicited direct message, judging by a new feature Facebook is currently trying out.
Image: Shutterstock

How do you really know that Facebook message came from who you think it came from? Perhaps it’s a sockpuppet account designed to stir up political division, or simply someone impersonating a friend to try and entice you to send over some cash.

Now, Facebook is testing a feature that provides additional information about direct messages from unknown contacts, including whether an account was recently created and what sort of phone number it used to log in.

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“We are testing a way to provide people with more context on folks they may not have connected with previously,” Dalya Browne from Facebook’s Messenger team told Motherboard in an email.

Caption: A screenshot of the warning. Redacted by Motherboard. Image: Motherboard

Erin Gallagher, a multimedia artist, provided Motherboard with a screenshot of the new messenger warning. It says that the person sending a direct message logged into Messenger using a phone number from Russia; that the account was recently created; and that the unsolicited user is different from a Facebook friend with the same name. The last point would presumably be helpful for identifying accounts that may be trying to impersonate other users.

Got a tip? You can contact this reporter securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.

Facebook has faced a wave of misinformation campaigns. In one case, in the lead up to the 2016 election, workers for the so-called Russian troll factory enticed Americans through Facebook to launch anti-immigrant protests. Facebook’s tested features may allow users to better identify whether an account approaching them is fraudulent or not, assuming the scammer hasn’t taken certain protections, such as registering a phone number in a different country than their own, and using older, more fleshed out accounts, to cover their tracks.

“This is just a small test,” Browne told Motherboard.