Facebook Wants Your Nudes

Yep. You ready that correctly.

The social media giant is testing a pilot program in Australia, designed to fight against “revenge porn.” Basically, Facebook is working with the Australian government and asking users to casually send their “intimate” photos and videos via Messenger. Facebook will then use that image to create a “digital fingerprint” of sorts, which will then make it easier to “match” it with “preexisting content.” They’re calling this the “Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot.”

Facebook’s Global Head of Safety, Antigone Davis, wrote:

In order to utilize the program, which is organized through a partnership with the Australian government, certain users send themselves the content believed to be widely circulated against their consent via Messenger. Facebook will then use technology to create a digital fingerprint or link, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), which would subsequently be employed as way to match it with preexisting content on the main platform, as well as Instagram (which Facebook owns) and Messenger.

Of course, people were immediately skeptical of this pilot program, so Facebook decided to offer a clearer explanation.

We don’t want Facebook to be a place where people fear their intimate images will be shared without their consent. We’re constantly working to prevent this kind of abuse and keep this content out of our community. We recently announced a test that’s a little different from things we’ve tried in the past. Even though this is a small pilot, we want to be clear about how it works.

This past week, in partnership with the Australian eSafety Commissioner’s Office and an international working group of survivors, victim advocates and other experts, Facebook launched a limited pilot in Australia that will help prevent non-consensual intimate images from being posted and shared anywhere on Facebook, Messenger and Instagram. Specifically, Australians who fear their intimate image may be shared without their consent can work with the eSafety Commissioner to provide that image in a safe and secure way to Facebook so that we can help prevent it from being shared on our platforms.

To be clear, people can already report if their intimate images have been shared on our platform without their consent, and we will remove and hash them to help prevent further sharing on our platform. With this new small pilot, we want to test an emergency option for people to provide a photo proactively to Facebook, so it never gets shared in the first place. This program is completely voluntary. It’s a protective measure that can help prevent a much worse scenario where an image is shared more widely. We look forward to getting feedback and learning.

Facebook explained how this will work:

• Australians can complete an online form on the eSafety Commissioner’s official website.
• To establish which image is of concern, people will be asked to send the image to themselves on Messenger.
• The eSafety Commissioner’s office notifies us of the submission (via their form). However, they do not have access to the actual image.
• Once we receive this notification, a specially trained representative from our Community Operations team reviews and hashes the image, which creates a human-unreadable, numerical fingerprint of it.
• We store the photo hash—not the photo—to prevent someone from uploading the photo in the future. If someone tries to upload the image to our platform, like all photos on Facebook, it is run through a database of these hashes and if it matches we do not allow it to be posted or shared.
• Once we hash the photo, we notify the person who submitted the report via the secure email they provided to the eSafety Commissioner’s office and ask them to delete the photo from the Messenger thread on their device. Once they delete the image from the thread, we will delete the image from our servers.

I understand what Facebook is trying to do. I really do. But at the same time, it totally creeps me out. I mean, you’re essentially giving Facebook employees direct access to your most intimate photos. Although some argue that the images in question are probably already out there. If you send Facebook your nudes, it’s probably because you’re worried yours are already floating around. But again, that’s not always the case. It seems like Facebook is encouraging people to do this regardless. It’s a “proactive” approach.

I don’t like it. Willingly sending intimate photos to a giant tech company sounds like a really, really, really bad idea.

h/t Daily Caller