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    Yes, Facebook Monitors Your Chat For Criminal Activity

    Facebook is monitoring your chat with your friends for criminal activity and is also notifying police and other concerned authorities if any suspicious behavior is detected. This is a whole screening process which includes a software that monitors chats for words or phrases that are considered bad like abusive, vulgar language. The scanning software flags a suspicious chat and notifies the Facebook Security Employees who can then inform the police. These details were given away by Chief Security Office Joe Sullivan while he was in an interview with Reuters. They also reported that atleast one alleged child predator has been brought to trial as a result of this chat scanning. Mashable reports that when they asked asked for a comment, Facebook only repeated the remarks given by Sullivan to Reuters: “We’ve never wanted to set up an environment where we have employees looking at private communications, so it’s really important that we use technology that has a very low false-positive rate.”

    Karan Kashyap
    by Karan Kashyap

    Community Contributor

    “We may disclose information pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other requests (including criminal and civil matters) if we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law. This may include respecting requests from jurisdictions outside of the United States where we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law under the local laws in that jurisdiction, apply to users from that jurisdiction, and are consistent with generally accepted international standards.“We may also share information when we have a good faith belief it is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activity, to prevent imminent bodily harm, or to protect ourselves and you from people violating our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, courts or other government entities.”

    Does it bother you that someone else could read your Facebook chat? Have you ever used questionable language during chat with friends? Do you want Facebook to stop scanning your chats?

    Heads up: It’s not just Facebook, there are other social networks doing the same.

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