Facebook Knows When Someone Uploads A Nude Picture Of You But It Will Not Tell You

Along with the development of technology, cyberbullying is more and more common. As a result, the number of victims is on the rise. Many people were hurt as their nudes were released online. This act is called revenge porn and people who carry it out has the intention to shame or harass the person featured in the images. Facebook can solve this matter with its system. However, it will not tell the victims if an attempt has been made to harass them.

In 2018, Facebook set a plan to protect users from revenge porn. The plan is called “digital fingerprints.” The idea goes like this, users can send lecherous or sensitive photos of themselves to Facebook’s security team in advance, creating a database for the company's system to work on. If a photo matching the digital fingerprint set was uploaded, the system would prevent it from surfacing and get rid of it.

It is a controversial decision that Facebook tells intended victims nothing about the attempted harassment. It is shown in Gizmodo’s report. On the bright side, the intended victims could feel traumatized if they receive a notification saying someone is trying to post nude photos of them online; so if they know nothing about it, the risk will be eliminated. On the other hand, knowing nothing about the situation could make them lose their vigilance to avoid other harassment attempts in the future on somewhere else, apart from Facebook. According to Gizmodo, it is vital that Facebook should send the would-be victims a notification about the attempted upload.

Many people have concerns over the “digital fingerprints” program, as well as the problem of privacy, it is hard to understand why Facebook wants to keep this information from the victims.