Some people say the only way to stop online harassment is to stop going online. Well, we aren't going anywhere. Reclaim Your Domain is Refinery29's campaign to make the internet (and the world outside of it) a safer space for everyone — especially women.
Facebook is making good on its promise to work towards building a safer community. Today, the social network announced a new suite of tools dedicated to identifying and fighting revenge porn, the nonconsensual sharing of sexually explicit images.
What's particularly interesting about this release is that Facebook is rolling it out across three of its platforms at once: your News Feed, Instagram, and Messenger.
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If you see an image of yourself or someone else that was shared without permission, follow the same steps that you would to report anything else on one of the apps. Click the downward arrow or ellipsis in the corner of the post and select "Report." When selecting the reason for reporting the image, you can select "nude photos of me." From there, as with other reported posts, members of Facebook's Community Operations team will look at the image, remove it if it is not in line with Community Standards, and deactivate the account that posted the image.
Though there is an appeals process, don't expect to keep your Facebook profile if you did post an explicit photo without someone's permission. Once your account is deactivated for this type of sharing, it's deactivated, says Antigone Davis, Facebook's global head of sharing.
These new reporting features are promising, but the truly impressive advancement is a tool Facebook has developed to prevent further sharing of the photo. Photo-matching technologies will detect if someone tries to re-post the image elsewhere, such as on Instagram, and they will be prevented from doing so.
Why did it take so long for tools specifically targeting revenge porn to appear in the first place? "It was a matter of understanding the need, getting feedback from our partners, and figuring out a system that will work really well and will address the actual need at hand," Davis told Refinery29. Today's launch was partly driven by a series of women's safety roundtables that Facebook held around the world. Revenge porn was raised as an issue across the board.
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The data is there to back up the concerns. According to a study from the Data & Society Research Institute, one in 25 Americans is a victim of revenge porn, and Facebook cites that 93% of victims face significant emotional distress as a result.
In addition to the reporting tools, Facebook is also releasing new support resources for those who are affected. These tools, developed in partnership with organisations including the National Network to End Domestic Violence and the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, include guides with information about next steps. For example, one guide might suggest what someone should do to protect herself, should she want to take her case to a lawyer (for example: take a screenshot of the post).
Today's release is the second action taken since Mark Zuckerberg posted his manifesto about community-building in February. Last month, Facebook unrolled new suicide-prevention tools.
Of course, the fight against revenge porn goes far beyond Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger and requires support on a legislative level. But given the amount of image-sharing that takes place across all three platforms, having the tools to report photos and find support is a must.