Facebook Steps in to Counteract “Revenge Porn”
Recently I posted a few blogs that dealt with the criminal exposure and privacy interests that can be placed at stake when one former relationship partner decides to post salacious images of the other partner without his or her consent, in what has been colloquially referred to as “revenge porn”.
According to a recent announcement by Facebook’s Global Head of Safety, Antigone Davis, the company has deployed custom software tools in the form of photo-matching technology, to prevent users from uploading nude or sexual images of others on its social media platform.
These steps are in addition to exiting measures and policies forbidding users from posting revenge porn; if they are caught doing so (after being flagged by fellow users), their accounts are subject to being deleted. Now, according to company representatives, Facebook also intends to use computer software to identify revenge porn and to automatically match it so that images cannot be posted multiple times.
The move by Facebook may have been initiated in partial response to a Northern Ireland lawsuit by a 14-year old girl who accused the social medial giant of failing to take active steps to prevent a man from repeatedly posting nude images of her without her consent. She sued Facebook directly by way of a pending claim to be brought before the Northern Ireland court, for misuse of her private information, for negligence, and for breach of the U.K. Data Protection Act. That case is still pending.
This initiative by Facebook will also add teeth to existing legislative measures that aim to counteract the instances of revenge porn postings generally. Currently in Canada, the enactment of the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act (S.C. 2014, c. 31) already makes it illegal to engage in cyberbullying, including posting revenge porn, and allow police to obtain information about an internet user and obtain a warrant where they have “reasonable grounds for suspicion”.