Facebook stepped up its fight against “revenge porn” Wednesday.
The social media giant added a tool for users to flag sexually explicit photos shared without consent. Facebook also disclosed its internal software that prevents the photos from being shared again, using a database of flagged photos and computer vision-driven software, according to Reuters.
The new tools come in the wake of a growing criticism after members of the Marine Corps were discovered sharing nude photos of female members on a private Facebook group last month.
Victims of “revenge porn,” who are disproportionately women, have found it difficult to get the pictures removed from the Internet since they easily appear on other sites.
Facebook, in particular, has struggled to filter the offending images given the deluge content posted each day, Washington Post reports. The company’s faced lawsuits over the issue in the past.
Users will now be able to report photos as inappropriate specifically because it is “a nude photo of me,” Facebook said in a press statement.
A whopping 10.4 million Internet users in the U.S. have been victims of “revenge porn” or threatened with it, according to a Data and Society Research Institute study.
—RealClearLife
This article was featured in the InsideHook newsletter. Sign up now.
