If you’re worried that an ex may be considering uploading revenge porn to Facebook, the site has come up with a novel way of combatting the problem – by asking you to upload the revenge porn to Facebook yourself.

Yes, that’ll be the same Facebook that is currently in the midst of an unprecedented data security scandal. Simply entrust all those hi-res’s of your intimates and all will be fine.

This may read like a preposterous April 1st jape or perhaps the dawn of some kind of dystopian nightmare, but is actually a real thing that is happening right now.

No, we are not joking. Once uploaded the site will scan your ‘features'... to create a digital nude fingerprint. Then when your malicious ex tries to upload your documented intimacies, Facebook’s machine will say “hey, I’ve seen these ‘features’ before and no, we’ve been asked not to publish this”. And the uploads will thus be blocked both on Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook has confirmed that this system is to be trialled in the UK, US, Canada and Australia.

"Specifically trained members"

Facebook details the process as follows: “Anyone who fears an intimate image of them may be publicly can contact one of our partners to submit a form.

“After submitting the form, the victim receives an email containing a secure, one-time upload link. The victim can use the link to upload images they fear will be shared. One of a handful of specifically trained members of our Community Operations Safety Team will review the report and create a unique fingerprint, or hash, that allows us to identify future uploads of the images without keeping copies of them on our servers.

“Once we create these hashes, we notify the victim via email and delete the images from our servers – no later than seven days. We store the hashes so any time someone tries to upload an image with the same fingerprint, we can block it from appearing on Facebook, Instagram or Messenger.”

The process was actually first mentioned by Facebook back in October 2017, although at that stage it was touted as a completely autonomous AI system and not one that involved “specifically trained” human eyes.

And it should be stressed that Facebook’s explanation suggests that the submitted pictures themselves aren’t saved – only the fingerprint/hash is recorded.

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