Facebook has just newly implemented their new photo matching feature that makes sure that no one can re-share or re-post images that were formerly flagged as revenge porn–that is, intimate images of someone who hasn’t given their consent to have their photos posted. So if someone attempts to post a revenge porn photo that was already taken down once, the person will receive a pop up saying that the photo violates Facebook’s policies and that Facebook will not allow the person to share that particular photo on Facebook, Messenger or Instagram.
“We’ve focused in on this because of the unique harm that this kind of sharing has on its victims,” said Antigone Davis, Global Head of Safety of Facebook “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.”
This “unique” harm Davis is referring to is that 93 percent of victims of the sharing of non-consensual intimate photos report “significant emotional distress”, and 82 percent have reported other significant difficulties in their daily lives, as reported by the US Victims of Non-Consensual Intimate Images.
Source: Daily Mail UK
While Facebook has had the report images feature for a very long time, the language surrounding revenge porn has become clearer and “very specific to these types of intimate images,” said Davis. In many cases, Facebook will go as far as deactivate the account of the offender.
Facebook has also partnered with the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and the Revenge Porn Helpline to give care and support to victims of revenge porn.
Source: The Sun UK
Revenge porn has been a very big issue on the internet with 4% of people in the US being victims of nonconsensual image sharing, according to a 2016 report from the Data & Society Research Institute and the Center for Innovative Public Health Research. Facebook’s newest tools have specifically tackled the issue of revenge porn after a scandal in which people on Facebook and Instagram have been targeting and sharing intimate photos of female marines in private groups.
Source: TechChrunch
Even if Facebook has enhanced their AI system to detect and take down potentially offensive photos last year, the Joaquin Candela, Director of Engineering for Applied Machine Learning of Facebook said that human intervention is still required in the cases of revenge porn.
“At this moment, we’re not using AI to go through this particular content,” Davis said. “There is significant context that’s required for reviewing non-consensual sharing.”
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