With technological advancements, we are always surrounded by cameras. That has led to a world where celebrities private photos are hacked and released online, or upset ex-boyfriends take “revenge” by posting nude pictures of their targets on social media. But, one social network is trying to stop it.
According to The Guardian, in Australia, Facebook is planning to mark your nudes as “do not post.” You send the nude images to Australia’s e-safety commission, which then passes them to Facebook. Facebook then assigns that photo with a digital fingerprint called a “hash,” that allows it to identify it and keep it from being posted instantly.
Julia Inman Grant told ABC that it would allow victims of “image-based abuse” to take action before users share the photos on Instagram, Facebook or Messenger.
“We see many scenarios where maybe photos or videos were taken consensually at one point, but there was not any consent to send the images or videos more broadly,” she told the Australian news outlet.
According to the Guardian, here’s how it works:
In the Australian pilot, users must first complete an online form on the e-safety commissioner’s website outlining their concerns. They will then be asked to send the pictures they are concerned about to themselves on Messenger while the e-safety commissioner’s office notifies Facebook of their submission. Once Facebook gets that notification, a community operations analyst will access the image and hash it to prevent future instances from being uploaded or shared
Facebook will store these images for a short period of time before deleting them to ensure it is enforcing the policy correctly, the company said.
It is important to note that 4% of US internet users have become victims of revenge porn, according to a 2016 study. But it begs the question, how many people are going to send nude photos to the government, and what will a government and a multinational company do with this database of photos?