Facebook is testing a new method to combat revenge porn in Australia, the Australia Broadcasting Corporation reports. The strategy entails uploading your nude photos or videos to Messenger in order to help Facebook tag it as non-consensual explicit media.
Facebook is doing this in partnership with Australian government agency e-Safety in order to try to prevent people from sharing intimate images without consent. If someone fears they are at risk of revenge porn, they can contact e-Safety. The organization might then tell them to send a nude photo of themselves to themselves via Messenger. Facebook’s hashing system would then be able to recognize those images in the future without needing to store them on its servers.
“They’re not storing the image, they’re storing the link and using artificial intelligence and other photo-matching technologies,” e-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told ABC. “So if somebody tried to upload that same image, which would have the same digital footprint or hash value, it will be prevented from being uploaded.”
Back in April, Facebook addressed revenge porn in the U.S. with a new photo-matching technology to ensure people can’t re-share images previously reported and tagged as revenge porn.
Facebook’s new tools around tackling revenge porn came shortly after a scandal involving people on both Facebook and Instagram targeting female Marines in private groups.
Australia is one of four countries participating in this test trial of sending nudes to prevent nudes from showing up, Facebook told ABC. It’s not clear where else Facebook is piloting this method to combat revenge porn.
I’ve reached out to Facebook and will update this story if I hear back.
