Facebook Protection is an advanced security program that Meta has designed for its main social network, in order to protect its most exposed users. Its implementation is mandatory in accounts that the platform considers more likely to be hacked, such as those of politicians, journalists or human rights activists.
However, it has become a headache for many people. It is that those chosen for the program who have not manually activated this additional layer of protection before the deadline, run into the impossibility of re-entering your profiles. And part of the responsibility for this event lies with Facebook itself, or how it has chosen to communicate the launch of this feature.
Facebook chose to inform users about Facebook Protect through a super generic email that looks, at a minimum, mistrustful. This is an email with a lot of vibe in content spamwhich is even enhanced by the title: “Your account requires advanced security from Facebook Protect”.
And while the communication is legit, many users dismissed it thinking it might be a typical attempt to Phishing. After all, fake emails purporting to be from Facebook are far more common than any user would like. The truth is that when the time limit set by the platform to activate this feature has expired, many users are now paying the consequences.
The edge reports that at these hours complaints on Twitter from people who have lost access to their profiles have multiplied. Does, apparently, the methods to recover the login using the additional verification methods (SMS or Google Authenticator) not working properly.
Facebook Protect is not necessarily something new; in fact, the social network announced that it would expand its reach to more countries at the beginning of last December. However, whenever the feature reaches new users, there are repeated complaints about how many people don’t pay due attention to notifications and end up losing access to the Meta platform.
Personally, I happened to receive the Facebook Protect activation notification at the beginning of November 2021. The message indicated that, weeks later, access to my account would be blocked if I did not comply with the mandatory action for the ‘activate.
As has happened to many, the email generated mistrust in me. That’s why I decided to go into the Facebook app looking for any reference to Facebook Protect; this way I wanted to corroborate that it was something legit. Luckily, on the main app screen a banner appeared that invited me to respect what was indicated in the e-mail.
Therefore, it is likely that those who rejected the Facebook email also did the same with the poster within the social network itself. By this I mean that those who lost access to their account surely have a share of responsibility in this story.
In any case, it is clear that Mark Zuckerberg’s company could have chosen a better method to report on Facebook Protect; it was by notification to push in the app, or with an email in a format that wouldn’t arouse as much suspicion of Phishing Where spam.
