Facebook thinks the unthinkable, and it’s not fake news

recognition technology to identify individual photos and stop the same images being uploaded by a jilted lover.

Employees of the firm will initially view the unedited shots before blurring them out and creating a ‘digital fingerprint’.

What planet do these guys live on?

If they were firefighters they’d ditch water for petrol. Equally, if they were running drug rehabilitation programmes they would probably bring a bag of crack to the meetings.

It is just absurd how they believe that someone living in such fear will be in any way comforted by handing over the images they are desperate never to be seen to a complete stranger.

The company also appears to have forgotten that there is nothing to stop spurned partners from uploading alternative naked images of their ex, as each image must be identified individually.

Failing that, those seeking revenge could simply upload the same image to other sites, such as Instagram and Twitter. The pictures could even be leaked or kept by disgruntled Facebook employees.

The social media giant presumes the victim has the offending photos in the first place.

It has left me wondering how on earth they came up with this idea.

The company brazenly ignores the potential victim is currently going through a living hell, having a digital knife, as it were, hanging over them.

A knife that, with a few simple strokes on a phone, would see their world implode.

Handing the very thing over that is the reason for their sleepless nights to an anonymous, unaccountable, Facebook employee, is not going to help anyone’s cause.

Victims may as well copy in Twitter and Instagram as well as the Vatican, just in case there might be anyone left on earth who didn’t have access to something they find deeply embarrassing.

And just who is it who actually decides what is and what isn’t an inappropriate picture to be blurred?

The team tasked with looking into Russia’s attempt to destroy democracy or the one determining what level of unbelievable human suffering we can see?

It may be that it is the luck of the draw for victims, depending on whether they get a sympathetic or heartless tech geek who is making the decision.

Revenge porn is a serious 21st-century problem and one, with all jokes aside, Facebook should be commended for trying to address.

Statistics in the US show four per cent of internet users have fallen victim to it, and 10 per cent of women under 30 have had someone threaten to post explicit photos of them online against their will. Such figures will only rise unless more is done to deter vengeful partners from posting pictures they were once entrusted to have.

The bottom line is that victims will only be empowered by laws that prosecute offenders properly through the courts as opposed to them having to make your own humiliating case as to why they shouldn’t be humiliated.

Until that happens, the truth is victims really have no control as to what is published.

The Facebook programme acts only to violate their privacy further.

Rather than trusting a private company such as Facebook, isn’t the solution to increase existing laws designed to protect possible victims from abuse whether that be in person or online?

Victims may as well copy in Twitter and Instagram as well as the Vatican...