FaceTec Wants to Help ‘Defeat the Spam Bots’ of Social Media

FaceTec is signaling a certain affinity for an increasingly popular mission in Silicon Valley, announcing that its 3D Liveness and Face Matching software “stands ready to ‘Defeat the spam bots and authenticate all humans’ on all social media platforms,” as the company put it in a statement.

Given its timing, the mission statement appears to refer to recent tweets from tech entrepreneur Elon Musk amid his efforts to acquire Twitter. Musk has been vocal about his desire to improve the social media platform, and tweeted last week that if he succeeds in his acquisition, “we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!” He followed that up with a tweet indicating that he wants to “authenticate all real humans” on the platform.

Both goals could serve to reduce spam messages, hate speech and other problematic messages on the platform, including messages amounting to harassment. Much of this kind of content is thought to come from automated bots and from ‘alt accounts’ through which individuals feel shielded by their anonymity.

FaceTec is evidently up to the task, and is ready to extend these same services to any other social media platform that would welcome them. The company has attained a high profile thanks to its sophisticated 3D facial recognition and liveness detection systems, which can be used to verify the identities of individuals by matching their selfie videos to images of official photo ID, and to authenticate registered users.

The solution is highly accurate and reliable, and FaceTec has made further assurances about its efficacy through its pioneering Spoof Bounty Program, which encourages hackers and other individuals to try to fool its authentication system into a false positive. FaceTec recently doubled the total payout on offer through its bounty program, raising it to $200,000.

FaceTec has seen a growing number of clients across a range of sectors, including online dating – a clear illustration that its tech could be applied to larger social media platforms like Twitter.

“We work with many of the largest dating apps and e-commerce sites in the world to stop catphishing, fake accounts, and fraud. But we have been disappointed that more social media companies haven’t been proactive in seeking out our privacy-preserving, on-prem 3D Liveness, and Age Check capabilities,” explained FaceTec CEO Kevin Alan Tussy.

“It appears social media didn’t actually want to stop the spam bots, perhaps because it would’ve negatively affected user metrics. But, that looks to be changing, and FaceTec stands ready to empower social media with 3D Liveness detection to ensure that only real humans are allowed on the platforms.”

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April 27, 2022 – by Alex Perala