A worldwide known web issue has turned Microsoft and Google versus revenge porn, with both companies joining hands in order to fight the posting of graphic material without consent. It’s a grave matter of privacy and has seen to millions of victims having sexually explicit pictures of themselves posted on the web by revengeful ex-partners.
Only last week, the company announced the new revamp of their PhotoDNA services, which was their grand stand against child pornography, meant to detect, remove and report to local authorities sexually graphic content of underage victims. It has promised a 99% efficiency in combating child abuse.
Now, Microsoft paired with Google in order to give victims the option of removing the links to sexually graphic content of themselves from its cloud services. Along with Bing, Google search engines will know take down direct links when requested and ensure that no intimate pictures posted by scorned, or simply distasteful, ex partners will be accessed by anyone without the victim’s consent.
According to Microsoft’s online chief, Jacqueline Beauchere, revenge porn is on the rise around the globe, with more photos of explicit content being posted without the victim’s approval every day. The cruel gesture can cause great damage in their every day lives, ranging from relationships, to social activities and even careers, in a world where with a few words typed in, a person’s entire life can be found on the internet.
And the numbers are growing still, even if just in April this year, Kevin Bollaert was sentenced to 18 years of prison for running a website that contained over 10,000 explicit photos, mainly of women, posted with the intent in mind of blackmail or humiliation. Be it hackers or the actual photographers, it has been underlined that intimate pictures have no right to be broadcasted to the entire world when their original purpose was solely private.
How Microsoft decided to take up gloves against revenge porn was in an online form where victims can report the publication of nude or sexually explicit images posted without their consent. The links will then be removed by Google search engines, though the battle continues until the actual content itself can be taken down.
It’s a global battle joined by others, such as Twitter and Reddit, to make the internet a safer place that will not be used with the ill purpose in mind of humiliating or blackmailing.
Image source: technology.inquirer.net