It’s not uncommon for someone’s profile picture on a social network to be misused to cast them in a negative light. It’s one of the risks that are associated with social media and now Facebook is doing its bit to prevent profile picture misuse. The company is offering new protections for profile pictures to users in India so that someone with nefarious intentions can not share, copy or download their images.
Facebook was motivated to build these protections after its research with people and safety organizations in India revealed that some women in the country chose not to share profile pictures that include their faces anywhere online because they worry about what may happen if someone misuses their photos.
Facebook users in India will now start to see a step-by-step guide to add an optional profile picture guard. When they add this guard, other people will not be able to download, share or send their profile picture in a message on Facebook.
People that they’re not friends with will be able to tag anyone in the user’s profile picture. On Android devices, Facebook will prevent others from taking a screenshot of the profile picture where possible.
As a visual cue of additional protection, Facebook will display a blue border and shield around the user’s profile picture.
The social network hasn’t confirmed if it plans on rolling out these protections to other users across the globe.
Filed in . Read more about Facebook. Source: newsroom.fb