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Facebook Messenger Will Now Give Context to That Random Person Messaging You

Facebook has long allowed people to message you even if you’re not friends with them. Oftentimes, those messages wind up in that “Other” inbox inside Messenger. You don’t know ...
Facebook Messenger Will Now Give Context to That Random Person Messaging You
Written by Josh Wolford
  • Facebook has long allowed people to message you even if you’re not friends with them. Oftentimes, those messages wind up in that “Other” inbox inside Messenger. You don’t know what I’m talking about? That’s ok, plenty of Facebook users probably have no idea that they have a whole other inbox full of messages from random stranger, spammers, and more.

    Anyway, it appears that Facebook is looking to be more of an all-encompassing messaging service – not just one for you and your buddies. With an update that’s rolling out on iOS and Android today, Facebook will provide some context for those random people messaging you inside Messenger.

    According to TechCrunch, Facebook will unearth publicly available information about the person messaging you and place it at the top of the message. It’ll display the person’s name, photo, location, and job – as long as they’ve made that information public.

    The new feature isn’t going to trample on privacy controls and show info users have set to private.

    The new feature won’t just pull up this type of info on strangers – it’ll do so with anyone you’ve yet to communicate with on the platform. Even if they’re your friend. Because, let’s face it, you sometimes forgot who the hell you’re friend with on Facebook.

    This isn’t the first time Facebook has given users a sort of Caller ID, or in this case Messenger ID. Last month, Facebook unveiled its Hello app for Android, a caller ID app that also displays a caller’s publicly available Facebook info. The app also makes it easy to block people, based on said info or lack thereof.

    I guess it never hurts to know a little bit about the person who’s spamming you on Facebook.

    Image via Marco Paköeningrat, Flickr Creative Commons

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