Here’s a question you don’t often have to face in the modern era: How much do you trust your friends? And do you trust them to let you back into your Facebook? That’s the thrust of the “Trusted Contacts” security feature.
Essentially, instead of having to go through an awkward and potentially frustrating verification process, you can just hand your friends the power to mercilessly screw with you if you forget your Facebook password:
Once you’ve set up your trusted contacts, if you ever have trouble logging in, you’ll have your trusted contacts as an option to help. You just need to call your trusted contacts and let them know you need their help to regain access to your account. Each of them can get a security code for you with instructions on how to help you. Once you get three security codes from your trusted contacts, you can enter them into Facebook to recover your account.
Wait, you have to have three real friends? Three? Facebook does understand it’s slowly destroyed the way we interact with each other, right?
Joking aside, this is actually quite a good idea, especially if you change your passwords frequently or get hacked. Unlike a lot of forms of identification, it’s pretty hard to spoof three of your friends, so if you lose control of your account, this will be an effective, if perhaps not particularly speedy, way to get control back.
On the other hand, you need to really trust those three people, or your life is probably going to turn into an episode of The League.