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Facebook flooded with 'sextortion' and revenge porn, files reveal

theguardian.com

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Re: Facebook flooded with 'sextortion' and revenge porn, files reveal

#61

Post by izacus »

vivekd wrote: post #35
js2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of your questions come very close to blaming the victim, don't they? What the real shame here to me is that nude photos/videos are something to be ashamed of or embarrassed about in the first place. Because from that premise, now you need to be careful about what you allow to be filmed and by whom. It is especially sad that women apparently need too worry about this a lot more than men.

>Because from that premise, now you need to be careful about what you allow to be filmed and by whom. Yes, exactly!! You do need to be careful about what you allow to be filmed and by whom. That is the substance of my comment. I agree that this is unfortunate. Maybe in some wonderful utopia to come we won't have to worry about such things, but in this world and under current circumstances, unfortunately we have to ta…

You're kind of forgetting that a lot of these kind of recordings are not taken by the victims knowledge. And that they can literally destroy someone's life in the future - especially if they're entering a public profession like teaching.

Re: Facebook flooded with 'sextortion' and revenge porn, files reveal

#62

Post by wordupmaking »

joyeuse6701 wrote: post #51
showerst wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't downvote you, but I think your frame of reference here is awful. Victim blaming in these cases really understates the harm caused by these actions, and the lack of agency that the victims have in preventing them. If the same boyfriend had stabbed her, would it be her fault for dumping someone who might stab her later? Of course not. The victim has a legal (and ethical) right to take whatever photos she deems…

I don't think it's really wrong to consider what responsibility a victim has in their fate. If you know that touching a kettle with a barehand may burn you, you are to blame when the kettle burns you when you touch it! You can blame the kettle, as children do, but it's not helpful, so we teach and learn not to touch it. The kettle doesn't have agency, but I suspect that for many who 'victim blame' they see crime, dis…

I wanted to reply to the original response which is now dead so I can't respond to it, but I think it fits here as well:

The point would be the same if he had taken those photos/videos without her knowledge. What'd be the suggestion then? Don't ever have sex in a room you didn't search thoroughly, and if you have to go to the bathroom, ask your partner to leave the room first, lock the door, have them wait while you're in the bathroom, and then go back in?

> I mean imagine a case where this guy found her bosses and family's phone number and texted the image to her family? Does that then become AT&T's problem to go in there and clean up those images and moderate them?

Facebook wants to see my ID after 9 years of membership and 100+ RL friends, just because some random clowns who sure as fuck didn't show their ID probably don't like my political views, and how good I'm at expressing them. So something like that is their problem, some random people clicking on "fake profile" or whatever and then they just HAVE my papers, and pronto. But a pretty clear cut case of revenge porn, not touching that with a barge pole? Heh. Stuff like that makes it clear Facebook isn't an utility like mail or roads, and isn't even trying. And you can't be half pregnant with this. The "life decisions" people make are kind of orthogonal to that.

Re: Facebook flooded with 'sextortion' and revenge porn, files reveal

#63

Post by jamii »

phaus wrote: post #49
rburhum wrote: post #18

I had a female friend last month whose ex-bf created a fake account and proceeded to set the profile and public photos and videos of them (having sex). He then went ahead and started sending friend requests to her entire family and friends. I felt so bad for her - it was awful enough to make her even have suicide thoughts. What really surprised me was how horrible the FB system to report stuff like this is. It is bas…

Not sure what the norm is, but I reported a fake account using my wife's picture (just a single, regular portrait) and it was removed within 5 minutes. A month would be ridiculous. I wonder if that happens often?

I regularly get friend requests from scantily clad teenagers in a city I no longer live in, whose profiles are full of links to porn sites. I report them, and a few weeks later get back a message saying 'we reviewed your report and found nothing objectionable'. There isn't even a report category that seems accurate - I usually pick 'fake account'.

Re: Facebook flooded with 'sextortion' and revenge porn, files reveal

#64

Post by cat199 »

nsaslideface wrote: post #24

Some problems run deeper than their individual manifestations such as these for which one may propose techie solutions -- here, sex ed is the only permanent solution. It's time to find ways to explain to boys that sex is an ordinary way to have fun and/or connect romantically between adult people, rather than a source or arena of power or status as it is endlessly portrayed in media.

To boys? really?

Have you ever read the cover of Cosmo or seen clothing with blatant cleavage?

The power/control dynamic extends in all directions & I have no doubt that some of this revenge porn extends in the other direction..

Re: Facebook flooded with 'sextortion' and revenge porn, files reveal

#65

Post by jacksnipe »

orblivion wrote: post #29
rburhum wrote: post #18

I had a female friend last month whose ex-bf created a fake account and proceeded to set the profile and public photos and videos of them (having sex). He then went ahead and started sending friend requests to her entire family and friends. I felt so bad for her - it was awful enough to make her even have suicide thoughts. What really surprised me was how horrible the FB system to report stuff like this is. It is bas…

This guy is in the videos as well, right? Could she somehow strike back harder and demolish his reputation? Tell his friends and family, and his employer, what he did to her? Who the hell would send a video of themselves having sex with someone to that person's family?

Unfortunately, in a lot of cultures and environments today (where culture is not only your global, national, or regional culture, but also the culture that you choose to surround yourself with), this kind of thing is much more devastating for women than for men.

Re: Facebook flooded with 'sextortion' and revenge porn, files reveal

#66

Post by harryf »

joyeuse6701 wrote: post #51
showerst wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't downvote you, but I think your frame of reference here is awful. Victim blaming in these cases really understates the harm caused by these actions, and the lack of agency that the victims have in preventing them. If the same boyfriend had stabbed her, would it be her fault for dumping someone who might stab her later? Of course not. The victim has a legal (and ethical) right to take whatever photos she deems…

I don't think it's really wrong to consider what responsibility a victim has in their fate. If you know that touching a kettle with a barehand may burn you, you are to blame when the kettle burns you when you touch it! You can blame the kettle, as children do, but it's not helpful, so we teach and learn not to touch it. The kettle doesn't have agency, but I suspect that for many who 'victim blame' they see crime, dis…

Not sure kettle is the right analogy here. It's too simplistic. As a product Facebook is vastly more complex beast, and the argument is much more naunced. Many feel compelled to use Facebook. 99.99% didn't read the Terms and Conditions (and BTW that's by design) and aren't aware, for example, what Facebook is allowed to do with their content. Most aren't aware that it's not in Facebooks interest to make it easy for you to report revenge porn; it's costly for them requiring manual review and against their general principle that all your content is theirs and will be stored forever. And that's just for starters

Re: Facebook flooded with 'sextortion' and revenge porn, files reveal

#67

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

sergers wrote: post #2

I am surprised their system for catching bad content is only user reports/flags. While revenge porn and stuff is bad, there are a number of known child related incidents. So if a private group of scumbags, are posting stuff to a private group, noone will know unless someone within reports. Who needs the darkweb when u can have a private Facebook group? Edit: as per replies below, they do use image recognition aswell…

Defining "bad content" is difficult. I don't think we're nearly advanced enough avoid human intervention. Using user reports works well.

Here's an example: if you go on YouTube you can find harmless videos of parents bathing their babies, and I doubt anyone would call that child pornography. Same goes for something like a birth video, even though it shows a vagina. How do you detect the differences?

I think it'd be an improvement if Facebook were more open with their policies and allowed nudity, even if it required flagging content as mature. To get around this people end up placing tiny black bars in any of the "offensive" parts. But how does that seriously change anything?

I'd say it's pretty reasonable to request users flag content. Detecting it programmatically is currently impossible, so what other choices do you have if you want to allow users to upload content? Should only multi-billion dollar companies be able to have user-uploaded content? How would you handle this issue if you were building a small media sharing site?

Re: Facebook flooded with 'sextortion' and revenge porn, files reveal

#68

Post by s_kilk »

jamii wrote: post #63
phaus wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what the norm is, but I reported a fake account using my wife's picture (just a single, regular portrait) and it was removed within 5 minutes. A month would be ridiculous. I wonder if that happens often?

I regularly get friend requests from scantily clad teenagers in a city I no longer live in, whose profiles are full of links to porn sites. I report them, and a few weeks later get back a message saying 'we reviewed your report and found nothing objectionable'. There isn't even a report category that seems accurate - I usually pick 'fake account'.

There must be some real dullards working on the mod team.

Re: Facebook flooded with 'sextortion' and revenge porn, files reveal

#69

Post by planteen »

balls187 wrote: post #53
planteen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need a phone number to register a new Facebook account...

They're free with Google Voice

I don't think Google Voice will work for that nor will a Trello number. I saw someone complaining on HN that their landline didn't even work.

Re: Facebook flooded with 'sextortion' and revenge porn, files reveal

#70

Post by orblivion »

jacksnipe wrote: post #65
orblivion wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy is in the videos as well, right? Could she somehow strike back harder and demolish his reputation? Tell his friends and family, and his employer, what he did to her? Who the hell would send a video of themselves having sex with someone to that person's family?

Unfortunately, in a lot of cultures and environments today (where culture is not only your global, national, or regional culture, but also the culture that you choose to surround yourself with), this kind of thing is much more devastating for women than for men.

I'm not saying that the existence of porn is supposed to hurt his reputation. I'm saying the fact that he would violate somebody in this way should hurt his reputation. The porn is just evidence of his doing this. I'm in no way trying to diminish this lady's situation. On the contrary, it makes me angry and I would want to see this guy see some serious consequences for it.
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