Meta reintroduces facial recognition technology to combat celebrity scam ads, account hackers

A hot potato: Meta is bringing back one of Facebook's most controversial features: facial recognition technology. This time, however, it is being used in the fight against celebrity investment scams, a problem that is becoming increasing prolific on the platform.

One of the many methods used to trick people into engaging with ads that lead to scam websites is to feature public figures, such as celebrities or content creators. Meta calls this "celeb-bait," a practice that violates its policies.

"Of course, celebrities are featured in many legitimate ads. But because celeb-bait ads are often designed to look real, they're not always easy to detect," Meta wrote in a post.

To crack down on celeb-bait, Meta is enrolling about 50,000 public figures in a trial that will use facial recognition tech to compare faces in an ad to the public figure's Facebook and Instagram profile pictures. If ...