Facebook has been taking many steps to prevent misinformation and fight "fake news", and it looks like it might start trying to protect users from these situations even inside its Messenger app, where users might be approached directly by someone they're unfamiliar with.
The social network is testing a new feature which would provide additional information to users about unknown users who contact them through the app. When users receive a message from a new contact, they'll see a series of details about the other user, such as whether or not the account was created recently and the country it originates from. Additionally, if the account has the same name as someone you know on Facebook, Messenger will warn you that it is not the same person so you know that it might be an impostor.
The feature was discovered by Erin Gallagher, who provided Motherboard with a screenshot containing the information presented to the user when an unknown contact reaches out to them. The Facebook Messenger team has since confirmed that it is indeed experimenting with this feature, saying that "this is just a small test", though we have no details on how many users will be seeing this.
As with any test, it's hard to say if and when it will roll out to all users, but the ability to see right away when someone might be trying to deceive you would likely be useful for many users on the platform. We'll have to wait and see if it gains traction in its testing period.
Source: Motherboard via UberGizmo
