SEATTLE – Microsoft is taking a stand against one of the more vile behaviors
on the Internet: revenge porn. The software maker opened a dedicated reporting websiteWednesday for those who have fallen victim to the malicious posting online of
sexually explicit photos or videos, often alongside sensitive private
information like a phone number or address.
Once the posts are reported, Microsoft says, it will begin removing links to
those pages from its Bing search engine and preventing access to such files
when they are shared through its OneDrive cloud storage service and its online
gaming service, Xbox Live, CNET.Com reported.
“Clearly, this reporting mechanism is but one small step in a growing
and much-needed effort across the public and private sectors to address the
problem,” wrote Jacqueline Beauchere, Microsoft’s chief online safety
officer, in a blog post.
Revenge porn has long been a tool for harassers and vindictive ex-partners
to humiliate former lovers, or sometimes even complete strangers, on the
Internet, sometimes leading to extortion attempts. Vague laws and inconsistent
concepts of free speech across international borders have made it difficult to
prompt law enforcement or site owners to remove the content. However, tech
companies like Google and Microsoft, which dominate broad swaths of the Web
around the globe, have begun stepping up the fight against the practice
directly, as well as making it easier for victims to navigate the process of
having the items taken down.
Last month, Google said it would soon begin removing links to revenge porn
in its search engine. The search giant followed in the footsteps of Twitter,
which in March set
up new rules that prohibit the posting of images of nudity or sexual acts
without the subject’s permission. A month before that, Reddit
updated its privacy policy to forbid “involuntary pornography.”
has a team of people dedicated to handling user complaints about sexually
explicit images, as well as hate speech and other forms of harassment.
In the US, the removal of revenge porn can walk a fine line because of
protections around free speech in the American legal system that do not exist
elsewhere. Europe, for instance, has instituted a controversial “right to
be forgotten,” under which people can ask that Google and other companies
remove search results showing unwanted or outdated information that bubbles to
the top of online queries.
Google said that its revenge porn removal does not violate any
constitutionally protected rights and is focused solely on what it considers a
criminal act similar in ways to identify fraud.
“This is a narrow and limited policy, similar to how we treat removal
requests for other highly sensitive personal information, such as bank account
numbers and signatures, that may surface in our search results,” Amit
Singhal, Google’s vice president for search said in the blog post.
Still, revenge porn may soon lose what little legal footing it has left.
Nearly two dozen US states have laws criminalizing revenge porn, while US Rep.
Jackie Speier, a Democrat from California, has announced plans to introduce
federal legislation Thursday that would criminalize the act across the country.
Tech companies say the fight is not over. The next step is making it even
easier to remove revenge porn when it is hosted outside of the grasp of tech
companies like Microsoft and Google, such as on a personal website.
“It’s important to remember, for example, that removing links in search
results to content hosted elsewhere online doesn’t actually remove the content
from the Internet,” Beauchere wrote on Microsoft’s blog post.
“Victims still need stronger protections across the Web and around the
world.”
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