If you’ve had a nude photo taken or you have ever sent a nude picture on any of the social media platforms, you might be nervous about where it could end up taking cognisance of the growing spate of revenge porn in the society.
In a bid to protect the safety and wellbeing of the Facebook community, Facebook is working with e-Safety Commissioner to block image sharing which could jeopardize the interest of the subject, especially revenge porn.
Similarly, your phone may be hacked or a relationship turn sour, meaning the “revenge porn” picture could be made public without your say so.
According a Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC, Facebook is partnering with a small Australian Government agency to prevent sexual or intimate images being shared without the subject’s consent.
e-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said victims of “image-based abuse” would be able to take action before photos were posted to Facebook, Instagram or Messenger.
“We see many scenarios where maybe photos or videos were taken consensually at one point, but there was not any sort of consent to send the images or videos more broadly,” Ms Inman Grant said.
One in five Australian women aged 18-45 and one in four Indigenous Australians are victims of that abuse, she said.
How will it work?
If you’re worried your intimate photos will end up on Instagram or Facebook, you can get in contact with the e-Safety Commissioner. They might then tell you to send the images to yourself on Messenger.
Yep, you heard that right. Send your own nudes … to yourself.
“It would be like sending yourself your image in email, but obviously this is a much safer, secure end-to-end way of sending the image without sending it through the ether,” Ms Inman Grant said.
Once the image is sent via Messenger, Ms Inman Grant said Facebook would use technology to “hash” it, which means creating a digital fingerprint or link.
“They’re not storing the image, they’re storing the link and using artificial intelligence and other photo-matching technologies,” she said.
“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.”
If the program goes according to plan, the photo will never show up on Facebook, even if a hacker or your ex tries to upload it.
Facebook’s head of global safety, Antigone Davis, said Australia was one of four countries taking part in the “industry-first” pilot which uses “cutting-edge technology” to prevent the re-sharing on images on its platforms.
“The safety and wellbeing of the Facebook community is our top priority,” Ms Davis said.
Addition report from ABC
