Facebook Battles “Revenge Porn” in Oz with Pilot Test

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What’s It About?

Facebook has launched a pilot test to combat “revenge porn” in Australia. The strategy entails uploading your nude photos or videos to Messenger in order to help Facebook tag it as non-consensual explicit media.

Why it’s Important

  • A new study shows that at least 20 percent of Australians in the 16 to 49 age group has been the victim of “revenge porn.”

  • It involves people posting illegally or often legally obtained sexually explicit images of their target following a break-up.

The Details

  • Facebook is partnering with the eSafety Commission to try and fight revenge porn.

  • Potential targets can alert eSafety, then need to upload sexually explicit images or videos of themselves, but only need to send it to themselves on Messenger.

  • One of Facebook’s Community Operations team reviews the uploaded content and “hashes” it so it cannot be read by humans.

  • Once that process is complete, a report will be sent to the user in response to the secure email originally sent to eSafety, and the user will be asked to delete the content from their Messenger thread.

  • Subsequently, Facebook will also wipe the content from their servers.