Facebook Wants You To Send Them Your Nudes To ‘Protect’ Them And The Whole Plan Is Pretty Fucked Up

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Well, I can honestly say I never saw this one coming: Facebook has been encouraging users to upload their nudes onto Messenger as a way to stop revenge porn. To which I say: What???

Apparently the social media site plans to use artificial intelligence to block unwanted images, including nonconsensual photos shared on any of its apps or sites. You just have to send them your photos ahead of time so their technology can stop it from being shared.

Ah, yes. Nothing could go wrong with this plan, right?

https://twitter.com/Tktoulouse/status/928792398846742528

While the general concept seems interesting — using new kinds of technology as a way to combat revenge porn — there are also a lot of obvious flaws. For instance, why the fuck would I trust Facebook with my nudes? Not only would that mean complete randos at Facebook could have access to my pictures (because, yeah, workers will be looking through them), but can I honestly trust the site to be secure enough that the photos wouldn’t be hacked and, consequently, posted elsewhere on the Internet? Is it really smart to put so much trust into a networking app?

And while we’re on the subject of how fucked up this whole thing is, what about people who are actually victims of revenge porn? Why does anyone think any of them would feel comfortable uploading their nudes to a social media site when the whole problem from the beginning was having their nudes uploaded to a social media site? If their private photos were (presumably) leaked by someone they once trusted with those photos, why would they trust those photos with people they don’t even know? I can’t imagine someone who has already been traumatized with having their intimate photos published would honestly feel comfortable with this method. I know I wouldn’t.

The fact of the matter is that Facebook is a site that has often been used to publish revenge porn, but it’s hardly the only place. And sending your pictures to Messenger isn’t going to be able to stop your photos from being uploaded to other sites. Could it be effective in stopping revenge porn? Maybe, but honestly, it will only do a little good in the long run.

So while I applaud Facebook for at least trying to find a solution to nonconsensual photos being uploaded to their site, they may want to reconsider how they do it. Honestly, as of right now, their whole plan is kind of a shit show.