Does change in color after writing @highlight in the comment section of a post in Facebook reveal whether the account is hacked? Know the truth.

A post claiming that if a user will write @highlight in the comment section of a Facebook post and if the color of the text changes, it will reveal if the account of the user has been hacked or not. This post had prompted many users to believe it and comment @highlight. 

However, Fact Crescendo found the claim to be false. Facebook does not have any such features which will tell if anyone viewed your profile or your account has been hacked. 

What’s the claim? 

A social media user wrote, “This is a new surprise from Facebook. If one will write @highlight in the comment section and the color of the text changes to blue then your account is strong and no one can hack it. If the text does not change to blue then follow this page for security tips.”

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A similar post also went viral a few months back saying typing @highlight in the comment section will enable you to check who visited or viewed your profile.

Fact Check- 

What Does @highlight do? 

At first, we typed @highlight in the comment section of the viral post. We noticed that a pop-up came out saying it will send notification to some friends. This is one of the ways to say few users from our friend list may get notification to view this post. Also typing ‘@’ followed by the name of the person will simply notify that person in the comment section to view the post. 

Simply it can be said that this trick is often used by users to get more comments and likes on their posts. 

Is there any such provision in Facebook? 

To know more about this we searched Facebook’s Help Center page. We found that Facebook does not allow users to track who viewed their profiles. Even third-party apps can’t provide this functionality. It also mentioned that if any apps or websites claim to provide these kinds of functionalities then one can choose to report against it to Facebook. 

Further, Fact Crescendo contacted Meta to get more clarity on this. Upon contacting, Meta clearly refuted the claim saying there is no such feature that will allow users to know the strength of their account or to check who viewed their profiles. 

An Economic Times report stated that this is a scam or conspiracy theory that by writing @highlight on a post’s comment will enable users to know their stalkers. 

How to make sure your account is safe?

Facebook provided many tips for this. You can find the details in their Help page. Few ways to keep your account safe is to protect your password by not sharing it with others and by creating a strong password. Logging out of the account after using it and not accepting unknown people’s friend requests are other ways to keep your account safe. For extra security, Facebook advises its users to enable two factor authentication. You can learn about it more from their help page. 

Conclusion: 

Fact Crescendo found the claim to be false. If the color of the text changes after typing @highlight in the comment section does not reveal the strength of a user’s Facebook account. It simply sends random notifications to a few users in the friend list to view the post.