Social media giant Facebook seeks to expand its protection of potential revenge porn photos via a pilot program that lets users upload intimate pictures before they’ve hit the internet in a bid to stop them from ever being shared.
The social network announced on Tuesday it is testing a new pilot program initiative to fight “revenge porn,” in which it will allow its users to “proactively” upload scandalous pictures so it can block them from being posted.
Facebook is now offering users a chance to submit their nudes to “specially-trained representatives”.
The system is being tested in the US, Canada, UK and Australia, following an earlier trial in Australia in late 2017.
Here’s how the pilot program works: Facebook users can reach out to several groups the company has partnered with, including the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and The National Network to End Domestic Violence, and ask for a review form. Users will upload pictures to a “secure, one-time upload link,” which will then be reviewed by a “handful of specially trained members of our Community Operations Safety Team,” according to Facebook.
The company’s Global Head of Safety, Antigone Davis, how it is supposed to work:
– Anyone who fears an intimate image of them may be publicly can contact one of our partners to submit a form
– After submitting the form, the victim receives an email containing a secure, one-time upload link
– The victim can use the link to upload images they fear will be shared
– One of a handful of specifically trained members of our Community Operations Safety Team will review the report and create a unique fingerprint, or hash, that allows us to identify future uploads of the images without keeping copies of them on our servers
– Once we create these hashes, we notify the victim via email and delete the images from our servers – no later than seven days
– We store the hashes so any time someone tries to upload an image with the same fingerprint, we can block it from appearing on Facebook, Instagram or Messenger
The movie comes just months after Facebook was rocked by a massive privacy scandal.
Hey, what could possibly go wrong?
