Facebook’s revenge porn plan is working
Would you send your nudes to Facebook? Would you trust a company famous for its somewhat loose approach to data privacy with intimate photos of yourself? The answer, for a lot of people, is “hell no, are you out of your mind?” Five years ago Facebook (which is now Meta) asked Australians for their nudes in a pilot effort to develop a tool to stop the non-consensual distribution of intimate images; the response was sceptical to say the least. In a surprising twist, though, it looks like Meta’s tactics to stop revenge porn are actually working.
Here’s how the program, which has been developed in partnership with SWGfL, a UK-based non-profit behind the Revenge Porn Helpline, works. If you’ve shared an intimate image with someone and are worried that that person might do something nefarious with it, you can send the images to content moderators at Facebook to be “hashed”– essentially the image is assigned a digital fingerprint. If someone then tries to upload that image to Facebook it can be quickly identified and blocked. It’s obviously not a silver bullet for stopping revenge porn, and it requires putting a lot of trust in Facebook and accepting that a random content moderator is going to be looking at your naked photos, but it gives people a little bit of control over their images.
Since the program first launched in Australia, Bloomberg reports, it has helped more than 12,000 people to hash more than 40,000 photos and videos. That media is prevented from being uploaded across Meta’s social networks, Facebook and Instagram. This week TikTok and the dating app Bumble also signed up the program. “We now have four platforms [participating], but we need thousands,” SWGfL’s chief executive office told Bloomberg. “The more we can get ingesting the hashes, the more we can reduce the threat and fear victims experience.”
The non-consensual distribution of intimate images is a massive and fast-growing problem. It’s most often discussed in terms of “revenge porn”, but there are multiple disgusting facets to it. “Collector culture”, for example, which is when people (usually men) pass around intimate images of women online, is an emerging trend. A senior helpline practitioner at the Revenge Porn Helpline described it as “a dystopian version of Pokémon” where “women are prizes to be passed around, shared and traded.” This sort of thing happens on multiple platforms and trying to stop it often feels like a dystopian version of Whac-a-Mole. Tech-based solutions like the program developed by Facebook are helpful, but tech alone can’t solve the problem. As Clare McGlynn, a professor of law, told the Guardian, culture change and education are hugely important. “Evidence from studies shows that just as teenage girls are pressured to send nudes, teenage boys are also feeling pressure to get nudes and share them, to gain kudos. Collecting digital trophies is becoming part of being a boy and a man – that’s what we need to change.”
Google isn’t upholding its pledge to protect abortion data
After Roe v Wade was overturned, Google promised that it would delete sensitive search data related to abortions: for example, searches for the location of abortion clinics. However, a new study by the tech advocacy group Accountable Tech has found Google is falling short. Some experts aren’t surprised. “Despite the promises of well-intentioned technologists, it is entirely unsurprising that new experiments are showing that sensitive information connected to abortion is being collected and retained by the advertising giant” one expert in surveillance told the Guardian.
Matt Gaetz associate Joel Greenberg gets prison time for crimes including sex trafficking
Greenberg’s case has had widespread attention because the former Florida tax collector is a buddy of Florida congressman Matt Gaetz and has been cooperating with the Department of Justice’s sex trafficking investigation into Gaetz.
Trust in women leaders is falling
New data from the Reykjavik Index for Leadership shows an alarming drop when it comes to trust in women leaders. It’s the first decline in this data-point since measurements started in 2018. Only 47% of respondents from G7 countries said they were “very comfortable” having a woman as CEO of a major company in their country, down from 54% last year. Men were a lot more likely than women to be critical of a female leader; one in 10 respondents said that they wouldn’t be comfortable with a female CEO. Responses to questions about female political leaders were along the same lines. Do we blame Liz Truss for this? Sort of. One theory for the decline in trust is more women have moved into positions of power, breeding resentment among men. When a high-profile woman fails, she’s also often held up as an example of why women shouldn’t be in leadership.
Elon Musk says he will start implanting brain chips in people soon
Including himself, apparently. He’s already got a chip on his shoulder, why not get a chip in his brain?
Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman named greatest film of all time in poll
It’s the first time that a film directed by a woman has topped the prestigious Sight and Sound poll.
Rest in power, Shatzi Weisberger
The beloved People’s Bubbie, a fixture at New York protests, has died age 92. You’ve probably seen viral photos of her at protests holding up signs like “Jewish dyke standing with Palestine queers“ or “92 year old dyke saying FIGHT LIKE HELL + LOVE EACH OTHER HARDER.”
The week in paintrarichy
A freshly baked baguette isn’t just delicious it’s also an intangible cultural heritage of humanity, according to Unesco. The baguette was afforded this honour at a recent Unesco meeting in Morocco, where 600 other items, including Tunisia’s spicy harissa, got the UN seal of approval. French delegates to the Unesco conference were very excited about all this; there was a lot of raucous baguette-waving in the room. Not everyone was impressed though. “This is not a day of celebration,” bread historian Steven Kaplan told CBC.
