Google will improve its revenge porn defenses with assist from a UK nonprofit

Google is partnering with a UK nonprofit to combat non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII). (You might understand it higher as revenge porn.) Over the approaching months, the corporate will start utilizing StopNCII’s hashes. These user-uploaded digital fingerprints can block people’ undesirable intimate content material from showing in search outcomes.

StopNCII has a fairly neat system to fight revenge porn. Say you have got some pictures you most positively don’t need surfacing on-line. Choose the image in your gadget, and StopNCII will create a digital fingerprint of the file. That hash might be uploaded to the service. The picture itself by no means leaves your gadget. The group then shares the hash (once more, not the spicy pic) with taking part platforms.

Then, if an asshole ex takes the freedom of importing stated picture to a kind of firms’ providers, it must be eliminated robotically. If the platform makes use of real-time hash matching, it might even block the add instantly earlier than it reaches anybody’s eyes. It is a fairly strong protection towards an unsightly downside.

The system is not bulletproof. First, it solely works for recognized pictures. So, if another person has an intimate picture that you do not have a duplicate of, you may should combat that utilizing different means. StopNCII does not work for AI-generated pictures, audio recordings or saucy textual content chats.

The system additionally will not assist if the content material is uploaded to a non-partner platform. Along with Google, StopNCII partners with Meta, Reddit, Pornhub, OnlyFans, Snap, Microsoft Bing, X and extra.

That is removed from Google’s first transfer to fight NCII. A decade in the past, it created a system for submitting revenge porn takedown requests. In 2024, it made it easier to remove deepfake NCII. On Wednesday, Google product supervisor Griffin Hunt defined that “given the dimensions of the open internet, there’s extra to be carried out to scale back the burden on those that are affected by it.”

When you’re 18 or older and have any photographs of your self that you simply wish to flag proactively, you can begin utilizing StopNCII proper now. Head to the org’s website to create a case. Observe that the service solely works for footage which can be nude, semi-nude or present a sexual act. And keep in mind, the picture itself by no means leaves your gadget, so your privateness stays intact.