Img Credit
You’ve probably been warned numerous times about the perils of posting job and relationship-threatening content on your Facebook page. “Inappropriate” status updates and comments viewed by an employer or romantic interest can undeniably get you fired or dumped; But by far the main reason for backlash are the ever-too-familiar incriminating photos.
According to experts, more than 200 million photos are uploaded to the social networking site each day. And while you may carefully monitor which photos appear on your friends’ feeds, controlling which photos are forever leaked into digital space and posted on your page may just get a little bit more difficult due to the social networking site’s new face recognition software.
How Does it Work?
This new feature, which is appropriately called “Tag Suggestions,” is designed to make the photo tagging process easier for users—it digitally scans the faces of uploaded photos and uses facial recognition technology to identify people that are currently in the user’s Friend’s List. The software will then suggest tags. All a user needs to do is accept. It’s really convenient for pictures that feature large groups of people—tagging everyone individually can become quite tedious.
Potential Concerns?
While some are in fact gung-ho about the new feature, others find it “creepy” and see it as just another invasion of privacy. The main issue of concern is that before, users were forced to analyze each individual photo with care: they had to stop and think twice about tagging that photo of their friend doing the keg stand. Now the process is “automatic” which means a lot of unwanted tagged photos can slip through the cracks and can dramatically increase your online presence. Not to mention that the face recognition software isn’t perfect. It can incorrectly suggest tags.
How to Take Preventable Measures?
The easiest thing you can do if you are troubled by this new software is to take back some control and disable it. It’s important to note that disabling this feature will only prevent users from “automatically” tagging you. With that said, to disable this feature go to your Facebook page >Account>Privacy Settings>Customize Settings>Scroll Down to “Things Others Share” Section>Click on “Edit Settings” to the Right of “Suggest Photos of Me to Friends” > Click Disable>Click Ok.
Another way to stop incrementing photos from reaching the wrong eyes is to untag the unwanted photos early on. To do this, set your account so that you receive immediate notifications via email or text message. To do this go to your Facebook page >Account>Account Settings>Click on the Notifications Tab > Scroll Down to “Photos” Section> Check “Tags You in a Photo.”
If you use the Facebook app on your smartphone, it would also be wise to change the notification settings to refresh every hour or 30 minutes so that you can detect tagged photos at your earliest convenience.
Author Bio: This is a guest post by Nadia Jones who blogs at best online college about education, college, student, teacher, money saving, movie related topics. You can reach her at nadia.jones5 @ gmail.com.
Comments