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FACEBOOK SAYS IT SCANS ALL OF YOUR MESSENGER TEXTS

Facebook scans the contents of messages that people send each other on its Messenger app blocking any that contravene its guidelines.

The scandal-hit firm, still reeling from revelations surrounding Cambridge Analytica, checks images and texts to ensure they are in line with its community standards.    

CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed the policy during a podcast interview with Vox's editor at large, Ezra Klein. 

Messenger says that it doesn’t use data from messages it has scanned for the purposes of advertising, according to reports in Bloomberg. 

The company told the website that it uses the same tools to prevent abuse in messages that are in place across Facebook as a whole.  

Users are able to flag posts or messages that they feel are in violation of the site's house rules.

This will either cause one of the social network's community operations team to manually review the content, or automated systems can also make decisions.

'For example, on Messenger, when you send a photo, our automated systems scan it using photo matching technology to detect known child exploitation imagery or when you send a link, we scan it for malware or viruses,' a Facebook Messenger spokeswoman said in a statement.

'Facebook designed these automated tools so we can rapidly stop abusive behaviour on our platform.'

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