Facebook's plan to combat revenge porn

• Australians who are concerned about an image being shared fill out a form on a government Web site (without attaching the photo).
• They then send the image in question to themselves on Facebook Messenger.
• A specially trained Facebook official views the photo in question.
• Facebook stores a hash of the photo (a computer derivative, but not a viewable picture).
• Once hashed, the government notifies the person of the report and encourages the person to delete the photo from their messenger feed.

Note: Facebook already has a mechanism for reporting photos that are shared without consent; this new test is designed to prevent images from being shared in the first place. Facebook security chief Alex Stamos addresses why the company took this approach in a Twitter thread worth reading.

"We are aware that having people self-report their images carries risk, but it's a risk we are trying to balance against the serious, real-world harm that occurs every day when people (mostly women) can't stop (non-consensual images) from being posted," Stamos wrote.