Facebook has Admitted to Scanning Private Messages Following a report earlier this morning by Bloomberg, the social media giant admitted they scan messages to make sure everything abides by the company's content guidelines. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed the practice earlier this week in an interview with Vox. Zuckerberg said that the company had scanned messages in Myanmar that were meant to incite violence. In that case, our systems detect what’s going on. We stop those messages from going through. A Facebook Messenger spokeswoman told Bloomberg that an automated system is in place that scans for exploitative images as well as viruses or malware. Facebook said that the practice is similar to how other internet companies monitor their platforms.