TikTok and Bumble join the initiative to prevent sharing of non-consensual images

Two big social media platforms TikTok and Bumble have joined the initiative to prevent sharing of non-consensual images with the aim of protecting the people.

The two platforms partnered with StopNCII.org (Stop Non-Consensual Intimate Image Abuse) in order to detect and block any intimate images that can be used to abuse others.

According to a report by Engadget, StopNCII.org uses on-device hashing technology through which people being threatened with intimate image abuse can create unique identifiers for their images. Participants can convert the images into digital fingerprints. Those hashes are shared with participating partners. TikTok and Bumble can block any images included in StopNCII.org’s bank of hashes.

Sometimes, people upload intimate images of their ex to several different platforms with the intention of  “revenge porn.” To protect these people, the two social media platforms joined up with the project Meta launched.

According to Bloomberg, StopNCII.org is an effective platform that can crack down on this problem. The platform is run by independent intimate image abuse experts.

Reportedly, more than 12,000 people have used the platform in order to prevent intimate videos and images from being shared without permission. According to the report, users have created more than 40,000 hashes to date.

The initiative was started in Australia in 2017 in order to help victims. The initiative was launched in partnership with Meta. Meta asked users to upload revenge porn images to a Messenger chat with themselves in order to create the hash. Meta said it would delete the images after hashing them. However, the approach raised obvious privacy concerns.

Over the past year, people tried to understand the initiative. If an image or video uploaded to TikTok, Bumble, Facebook or Instagram matched a corresponding hash, the programme would let the moderator know about the image. Subsequently, the moderator can remove the file