You know, I can’t possibly fathom anything going wrong with Facebook’s most recent attempt to prevent revenge porn.
I mean, nothing bad will ever happen from having millions and millions of people upload their own naked pictures to the social media service, right?
As silly as it sounds, it’s actually something Facebook is doing, all in an attempt to put the kibosh on angry exes posting nude photos of their former lover(s) to the masses.
It might sound like an email scam, but the company’s piloting the technology in Australia – allowing people who’ve shared nudes with partners to stop the files being shared when a relationship ends.
People who are concerned that an ex-partner might share nudes on WhatsApp, Instagram or Facebook can upload the files – and the company ‘fingerprints’ them. From that point, any attempts to upload or share the same image will be blocked, the Guardian reports.Australia’s e-safety commissioner Julia Inman Grant told ABC, ‘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.’
In the pilot scheme, users complete an online form outlining their concerns on the e-safety commissioner’s website – and it notifies Facebook of the situation. Once that happens, Facebook’s analysts ‘hash’ the image, storing a unique fingerprint which prevents further instances being uploaded and shared.
So not only does Facebook have your date of birth, drivers license and possibly your social security number, they also have naked pictures of you and your current or soon-to-be ex.
Kind of sounds like the world’s largest internet crime ring.
