Facebook Chat Monitoring Mechanism Triggers Buzz In Digital Media

Facebook has begun monitoring chat room messages to alert cops against suspicious behavior.

Facebook aims to achieve this objective by employing smart software to detect any suspicious activity, flag off any suspicious exchange of information and enable knowledge-sharing with countries which are unwitting participants in origination of such messages.

We've never wanted to set up an environment where we have employees looking at private communications, so it's really important that we use technology that has a low false-positive rate, Facebook chief security officer Joe Sullivan was quoted as saying by Reuters.

The report published on CNET goes on to elaborate how a child predator was brought to book and a major mishap was averted as a result of the chat scanning mechanism.

On spotting any phrase, personal exchange of objectionable information, or vulgar language through the smart software, Facebook security personnel will assess whether to inform the police or not.

To avoid criticism pertaining to breach of privacy, Facebook employees will not be privy to any scanned chats. However, it is yet to be seen if the scanned chat information will be stored or deleted.

Dispelling concerns regarding Facebook's employees monitoring chat communication, officials of the social networking site averred that technology is engaged for the issue so that it has a low false rate.

Though Facebook users may not appreciate the monitoring mechanism, they may need to take recourse in the fact that benefits far outweigh the dangers lurking around the corner.