Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) develops a tool that will fight revenge porn.
The social media site is trying to continue its role of being a friendly online environment where everyone can feel safe. Its new tool will help people protect their privacy at a time when many spiteful degenerates are wreaking havoc on others’ lives.
Revenge porn is a form of humiliating someone by posting naked pictures of them online. The move is sometimes made by hackers who steal images from someone’s computer, while others are ex-boyfriends who use a naked picture of their ex to expose them to the world.
Facebook’s tool uses a photo-matching technology that recognizes images tagged as revenge porn, and ensures that people aren’t able to re-share them. Naturally, the site will take these images down.
A pop-up will appear if someone tries to share such an image that mentions the fact that the image breaches privacy policies on the website and they cannot be shared on the site, Messenger or Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.
“We’ve focused in on this because of the unique harm that this kind of sharing has on its victims,” Facebook Global Head of Safety Antigone Davis told me. “In the newsroom post we refer to a specific piece of research around the unique harm this has for victims.
FB stock is up 0.1% Wednesday.
