Facebook wants to stop revenge porn – but needs your nudes to do it

Facebook is testing an unusual way to put an end to revenge porn – they need your intimate images to do it.

The site is asking users who are concerned that their intimate images might end up online to send those nude photos to themselves via Facebook messenger.

The Australian government’s Office of the eSafety Commissioner announced it is one of four countries who is in a pilot program with Facebook that will help prevent intimate images from being posted and shared across Facebook, Messenger, Facebook Groups and Instagram.

“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,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told ABC news.

The pilot program is also available in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada, according to CNBC.

According to the eSafety office, Facebook users who are concerned that an intimate image of them may end up online can complete an online form. Then, the users will be asked to send that image to themselves on Facebook Messenger.

“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,” Grant said.

Once Facebook receives notice of the image, their community operations team will use image-matching technology to prevent the image from being uploaded or shared online.

“They’re not storing the image, they’re storing the link and using artificial intelligence and other photo-matching technologies,” Grant 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.”

This story was originally published November 9, 2017 at 9:15 AM with the headline "Facebook wants to stop revenge porn – but needs your nudes to do it."