Revenge porn is an incredibly serious issue in the age of the internet, but don’t worry, Facebook’s got you covered.
Facebook is aiming to combat revenge porn by getting you to send your nudes through to the social media giant. Yes that’s right. Facebook wants to stop revenge porn by having you submit your nudes to them. I can’t believe this isn’t satire.
Despite sounding completely bizarre, there is a degree of logic behind the new idea.
According to BBC Newsbeat, the logic behind the idea is that if you are afraid an intimate photo of yourself may be used as revenge porn, you should send said image through to Facebook so that they can make sure it gets blocked and banned from the site before it gets shared online.
Originally Facebook trailed the system in Australia but they are now extending the trial to the UK, US, and Canada.
At the minute Facebook haven’t revealed how the first trial went in Australia, and of course, the decision to send a nude photo of yourself to essentially a stranger at Facebook can be quite a daunting move.
I personally can’t imagine many people would happily send photos of themselves in the nip to the social media site.
How the system works involves you (the person who’s anxious that your nudes might leak), contacting Facebook’s partner for the trial, the Revenge Porn Helpline.
Then someone there will get in touch with Facebook and you’ll be sent a link to upload the picture or pictures you’re worried about being shared online.
Antigone Davis, Facebook’s Global Head of Safety, explained to Newsbeat that only a ‘very small group of about five specially trained reviewers’ will see the photos in question.
The photos will then be given a unique digital fingerprint in a process which is referred to as ‘hashing’.
From that moment on, if anybody tries to upload the photo to Facebook, share it on Messenger, or Instagram – they will be unable to do so.
A similar technique is being used to stop child pornography being shared online.
However. The bad news is that there is no 100 per cent guarantee that the new system will work as photos can be easily manipulated so that they’re slightly different from the original. This would mean the manipulated photos could, possibly, not be picked up by Facebook and blocked.
Another major issue with the system is that if you don’t have a copy of the photo or photos you’re worried about, there isn’t much that Facebook can do for you.
So say for instance your ex took intimate photos of you on their own phone and you don’t have said photos, there isn’t all that much Facebook can do to stop the photos from being posted or shared on the site.
Would you send your nudes to Facebook in order to stop them circulating online?
If you’ve been affected by any of the issues, please contact Revenge Porn Helpline:
