CANBERRA, Australia – Facebook is partnering with the Australian government on a pilot project designed to prevent the spread of revenge porn on the massive social media platform. The effort relies on users proactively supplying their intimate images to Facebook before someone else does.
“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,” said Australian e-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant. “
Facebook’s concept is a bit like the digital fingerprint filtering employed by YouTube and other online video sites to prevent copyrighted materials from being uploaded to their platforms by content pirates and other unauthorized parties.
Unlike YouTube trying to keep Hollywood films from being displayed, however, the sensitive nature of intimate and sexually-explicit materials may cause users to be hesitant to buy into the idea of handing over such images to Facebook as a prophylactic against potential revenge porn incidents.
To assuage such concerns, Inman Grant noted that Facebook is “re not storing the image, they’re storing the link and using artificial intelligence and other photo-matching technologies.”
“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,” Inman Grant said.
Offhand, it might seem unwise to many users to entrust Facebook with the very same images potential revenge porn victims are trying to keep off the internet. On the other hand, if a platform like Facebook is going to prevent the publication of such images, having a database filled with specifically disallowed images seems a more assured and precise approach than relying on AI to flag and prevent the posting of any image which could be revenge porn.
“(Facebook) thought of many different ways about doing this and they came to the conclusion as one of the major technology companies in the world that this was the safest way for users to share the digital footprints,” Inman Grant said. “We have a great deal of comfort that they have chosen the most secure route. We want to empower people to be able to protect themselves and take action; we don’t want to make them vulnerable.”
Inman Grant’s comments were echoed by Antigone Davis, the head of global safety for Facebook, who said “the safety and well-being of the Facebook community is our top priority.”
“As part of our continued efforts to better detect and remove content that violates our community standards, we’re using image matching technology to prevent non-consensual intimate images from being shared on Facebook,” Davis said. “These tools, developed in partnership with global safety experts, are one example of how we’re using new technology to keep people safe and prevent harm.”
One of the reasons revenge porn is at the front of the Australian government’s collective mind is a pair of recent, high-profile revenge porn incidents which got a lot of play in the national press and among social media users.
After the Richmond Football Club won the Australian Football League championship, a photo of a topless woman wearing one an AFL championship medal circulated online, along with another shot in which a scantily clad woman posed in front of the team’s logo.
The fact one of its players was culpable for the spread of at least one of the two images didn’t sit well with the football club’s leadership, including the Richmond’s female club president, Peggy O’Neal, and its CEO, Brendan Gale.
Gale was particularly irked by his club being associated with revenge porn, which he said is entirely out of step with the club’s progressive ethos when it comes to gender relations.
“(T)his club feels very strongly about the positive role women [play] at our club and in sport generally,” Gale said at the time. “This club feels very strongly about creating an environment where women can thrive, and this club feels very strongly about promoting attitudes and behaviors that are respectful of and supportive of women.”
