Meta announced on Wednesday that it’s bringing more scam detection tools to Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger. The tech giant says the new features are designed to alert users before they engage with something suspicious, noting that scammers try to avoid detection and may not immediately use accounts maliciously.
The company is testing new alerts on Facebook to warn users about suspicious friend requests. When you send or receive a request from an account that shows signs of suspicious activity, such as having few mutual friends or listing a different country as its location, you’ll see an alert prompting you to review the request to help you decide whether to block or accept it.
Over on WhatsApp, Meta is launching device linking warnings to prevent scammers from trying to trick users into linking their WhatsApp account to their device.
“For example, they may pose as a talent competition asking you to cast your vote by going to a website and entering your phone number, followed by a device linking code on your WhatsApp,” Meta explained in a blog post. “They may also try to trick you into scanning a QR code under false pretenses, which would then link the scammer’s device to your account. To stay ahead of these tactics, WhatsApp will now alert you when behavioral signals suggest a linking request might be suspicious.”
These alerts will show users where the request is coming from and warn them that it could be a scam.
As for Messenger, Meta is rolling out its advanced scam detection to more countries this month. The company didn’t specify which countries, but TechCrunch has reached out to learn more.
With advanced scam detection, when a chat with a new contact contains patterns commonly associated with scams, such as suspicious job offers, Meta will warn users and ask whether they want to share recent chat messages for an AI scam review. If the tool detects a scam, Meta will encourage the user to block or report the suspicious account. The company will also provide more information about common scams.
As part of its announcement, Meta said it removed more than 159 million scam ads last year, 92% of which were taken down before anyone reported them. The company also removed 10.9 million accounts across Facebook and Instagram that were associated with criminal scam centers.