Facebook in move to fight revenge porn
FACEBOOK already knows about many of our most personal details – the day we were born, who our friends are and where we spend our weekends – but the social network’s latest test may be a step too far for many of its users.
It is asking users to send in their intimate nude photos in an attempt to counter the rise of revenge porn. It plans to use the images to block ex-lovers and hackers from posting such pictures later on.
Facebook has been testing the feature in Australia, and is now working with authorities in the UK, US and Canada to expand it.
After receiving images or videos, Facebook’s software would create a “hash” – a digital fingerprint of the photo – so it can be automatically recognised and blocked the next time somebody else tries to upload it.
The same technology has been used for years to prevent the spread of child images, and is also used by internet companies to share and block terrorist photos.
Facebook started blocking repeat instances of revenge porn earlier this year, using the hashing technique to prevent explicit images that had already been posted and then deleted, from being posted again.
However, it hopes this trial, which aims to block photos preemptively on Facebook and Instagram, will prove more effective.
Facebook bans explicit images, and revenge porn can result in a prison sentence of up to two years in the UK, but it is still seen as a problem.
Internal documents leaked this year revealed that the company processes 54 000 cases of revenge porn a month and that more than 14 000 Facebook accounts were banned for posting revenge porn in January alone.
Reporting an image to the company involves users sending themselves the picture over Facebook Messenger, when a customer service worker will check a blurred version of the image to confirm it is explicit.
Facebook then deletes it, retaining only the hash – a string of code that cannot be reverse-engineered to create the original photo, but can be used to recognise further instances of it.