As part of its attempts to make Indian users, predominantly women, feel secure about their online privacy, Facebook has introduced a new security tool. This tool would ensure that no one can download your profile picture or share it on the Facebook messenger, and no one would be able to screenshot it on the Facebook app for Android. Only you and your friends would be able to tag it, and there would be a shield signal that would attempt to remind users that it’s a protected picture.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg also spoke about online security concerns in a Facebook Live from Chicago on Thursday.
Additionally, the features were outlined by Facebook in a blog post from 21 June, which talks about how women in India, due to apprehensions about safety, often avoid putting up their pictures, which makes it more difficult for people they know to find them.
In the video that was shared as part of the blog post, senior Facebook employees discussed the need to make Indian Facebook users feel safe.
A profile picture may seem like a small part of interacting online, but it is a key component of how people build a community on Facebook, that’s why we are launching tools to give people more control over their picture(s) to manage them better.Ankhi Das, Public Policy Director, Facebook
The post also mentions that adding an extra layer of design to a picture reduces the chances of it being copied by 75 percent.
This is our first step in a much bigger project that we hope to continue for many years.Aarati Soman, Product Manager, Facebook
Both of these tools, the privacy settings and the design layer, will be made available throughout India by 27 June, though the initial rollout began in some parts from 21 June itself.
These tools have been developed in partnership with Indian safety organisations that include Centre for Social Research, Learning Links Foundation, Breakthrough and Youth Ki Awaaz.
Here’s a quick video explainer of how to use the new tool.
However, there are still some ways of circumventing these tools. If you have a dedicated stalker, they can click a picture of your picture from another device or simply open it on a mobile browser or an iPhone or a desktop (phew!). At this point at least, the features can easily be rendered redundant.
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