Facebook seeks nude photos to fight revenge porn
Britain, Canada and the US also may take part in project now underway in Australia
Facebook is trying to combat “revenge porn” by encouraging users in Australia to submit their nude photos to a pilot project designed to prevent intimate images from being shared without consent.
Adults who have shared nude or sexually explicit photos with someone online, and who are worried about unauthorised distribution, can report images to the Australian government’s eSafety Commission.
They then securely send the photos to themselves via Messenger, a process that allows Facebook to “hash” them, creating a unique digital fingerprint.
The identifier is used to block any further distribution on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger as a pre-emptive strike against revenge porn, a common method of abuse and exploitation online.
“We’re using image-matching technology to prevent non-consensual intimate images from being shared,” said Antigone Davis, Facebook’s head of global safety. A Facebook spokesman said Britain, Canada and the United States are also expected to take part in the project.
Australia’s eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant told AFP the initiative empowers people to protect themselves against the unauthorised spread of intimate images.
“It removes control and power from the perpetrator who is ostensibly trying to amplify the humiliation of the victim among friends, family and colleagues,” she said.
If successful, the trial should be extended to other online platforms, Inman Grant added.
Australia is among world leaders in efforts to combat revenge porn. Its eSafety Commission launched an online portal last month, allowing victims to report cases where their photos have been shared on the internet without consent.
A recent survey by the commission showed one in five Australian women aged 18-45 suffered image-based abuse, with Facebook and its Messenger app accounting for 53 per cent of revenge porn, followed by Snapchat at 11 per cent then Instagram at four per cent.