Good news everyone, face recognition and photo-tagging recommendations on Facebook are back!

By Francis Bea February 1, 2013

Facebook is making use of its Face.com acquisition once again and will reintroduce its photo-tagging suggestions, the social network announced in a blog post.

The facial recognition feature, which landed in hot water over in Europe before Facebook relented and removed the tech to comply with European privacy regulations, was shelved in the United States for “technical improvements.” The reintroduction of Facebook’s facial recognition tech doesn’t mean it’s been met with open arms in the United States either. Lawmakers in Capitol Hill expressed their concerns for Facebook’s treasure trove of facial data as well.

The photo-tagging suggestions feature is simple and efficient, and tagging your friends admittedly becomes a breeze. When you upload an image to Facebook and start tagging relevant friends, Facebook’s facial recognition tech is able to identify and suggest the names of the people it believes are captured in a photo. There’s even group tagging to ID one person in multiple photos. Facebook may even help take the guess work out of faces that you’re just not familiar with.

So what about the privacy concerns that lawmakers and regulators are so concerned about? Facebook doesn’t appear to have budged with its privacy policy at least in the United States. The facial recognition feature is enabled by default like it used to be.

Since Facebook doesn’t really make opting out obvious, we figured that we could point you in the right direction so you won’t show up as one of Facebook’s recommended tags when friends go to tag photos with you in it.

Click the gear icon on the top right of your Facebook page.
Click on Account Settings.
Click on Timeline and Tagging on the left hand navigation column.
On the Timeline and Tagging page, in the category for “How can I manage tags people add and tagging suggestions?” you’ll be able to edit “Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are uploaded?” and opt out by selecting from the default “Friends” drop down menu.

If you don’t see the final step (step four) then the feature hasn’t been released to your Facebook profile yet.

Topics

Facebook

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Francis got his first taste of the tech industry in a failed attempt at a startup during his time as a student at the…

Social Media

Bluesky barrels toward 1 million new sign-ups in a day

Social media app Bluesky has picked nearly a million new users just a day after exiting its invitation-only beta and opening to everyone.

In a post on its main rival -- X (formerly Twitter) -- Bluesky shared a chart showing a sudden boost in usage on the app, which can now be downloaded for free for iPhone and Android devices.

Computing

How to make a GIF from a YouTube video

woman sitting and using laptop

Sometimes, whether you're chatting with friends or posting on social media, words just aren't enough -- you need a GIF to fully convey your feelings. If there's a moment from a YouTube video that you want to snip into a GIF, the good news is that you don't need complex software to so it. There are now a bunch of ways to make a GIF from a YouTube video right in your browser.

If you want to use desktop software like Photoshop to make a GIF, then you'll need to download the YouTube video first before you can start making a GIF. However, if you don't want to go through that bother then there are several ways you can make a GIF right in your browser, without the need to download anything. That's ideal if you're working with a low-specced laptop or on a phone, as all the processing to make the GIF is done in the cloud rather than on your machine. With these options you can make quick and fun GIFs from YouTube videos in just a few minutes.
Use GIFs.com for great customization
Step 1: Find the YouTube video that you want to turn into a GIF (perhaps a NASA archive?) and copy its URL.

Social Media

I paid Meta to ‘verify’ me — here’s what actually happened

In the fall of 2023 I decided to do a little experiment in the height of the “blue check” hysteria. Twitter had shifted from verifying accounts based (more or less) on merit or importance and instead would let users pay for a blue checkmark. That obviously went (and still goes) badly. Meanwhile, Meta opened its own verification service earlier in the year, called Meta Verified.

Mostly aimed at “creators,” Meta Verified costs $15 a month and helps you “establish your account authenticity and help[s] your community know it’s the real us with a verified badge." It also gives you “proactive account protection” to help fight impersonation by (in part) requiring you to use two-factor authentication. You’ll also get direct account support “from a real person,” and exclusive features like stickers and stars.