Facebook has introduced an anti-revenge porn feature to the platform which will be able to detect previously-flagged malicious images and stop users from posting them.
“If someone tries to share a photo that Facebook has previously taken down, that person will see a pop-up saying the photo violates Facebook’s policies and that Facebook will not allow the person to share that particular photo on Facebook, Messenger or Instagram,” explained TechCrunch on Wednesday. “Facebook has also partnered with a handful of organizations, like the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and the Revenge Porn Helpline, to offer support to people who are victims of revenge porn.”
“We’ve focused in on this because of the unique harm that this kind of sharing has on its victims,” said Facebook Global Head of Safety, Antigone Davis. “In the newsroom post we refer to a specific piece of research around the unique harm this has for victims. I think that’s where the focus was for this moving forward.”
“At this moment, we’re not using AI to go through this particular content,” Davis continued, pointing out that the issue is currently too complex to cut out human moderators completely. “There is significant context that’s required for reviewing non-consensual sharing.”
Revenge porn has proven to be an issue for social media platforms, where disgruntled exes and even hackers have been able to post private and intimate photos of their victims without permission.
Last month, a revenge porn victim’s lawyer claimed micro-blogging site Tumblr had “chosen to ignore” revenge porn images posted on the platform after it allegedly took three weeks to get a video of the then-17-year-old victim removed from the site.
“In my opinion, Tumblr has chosen to ignore valid legal demands because they earn more money using victims’ photographs as clickbait than they do protecting minors,” claimed lawyer Daniel Szalkiewicz, whose firm specializes in Internet defamation and revenge porn cases.
Upon investigation, Breitbart Tech also found numerous accounts on Tumblr that specialized in trying to find and shame the victims seen in revenge porn, most of which had been up for numerous weeks without deletion.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.
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