Revenge porn is a pervasive problem.

According to the 'Nonconsentual Image Sharing' report, 4% of U.S. internet users have been a victim to nude or semi-nude images of themselves being on the internet without their consent.

In April 2015 it finally became an offence to share private sexual photographs or films without the subject's consent, with a maximum sentence of two years imprisonment.

This lead to 200 people being prosecuted under the new law introduced in England and Wales Between April 2015 and September 2016.

Good progress, yes, but due to the prevalent nature of the phenomenon, to truly eradicate the damaging issue of revenge porn, it needs to be more than a legal issue.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook and general tech genius (we're pretty sure you've probably heard of him), has decided to put revenge porn eradication on the top of his to do list.

Posting on his personal Facebook wall on Wednesday:

We're focused on building a community that keeps people safe. That means building technology and AI tools to prevent harm. Today we're rolling out new tools to prevent 'revenge porn' from being shared on Facebook, Messenger and Instagram. Revenge porn is any intimate photo shared without permission. It's wrong, it's hurtful, and if you report it to us, we will now use AI and image recognition to prevent it from being shared across all of our platforms.

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According to Business Insider the tool is a two-pronged approach making it easier to report. There's an option letting you specifically report photos for revenge porn, as well as the use of photo-matching technology to prevent an image being uploaded from another source once it has been taken down.

The Guardian has reported that this photo-matching technology 'is likely to be similar to the PhotoDNA image hashing system, which is already used to identify child abuse imagery and terrorist material, and prevent further sharing.'

This could well be in response to a case last year in which a 14 year-old girl from Belfast attempted to sue the company over their inability to indefinitely quash a nude photo of her being repeatedly uploaded on various pages.

In theory, this new technology will help to stop instances like her's happening again. Although, Facebook (and others like it) can still do little to nothing about the photos being uploaded in the first place.

So it looks like we're going to have to look a little deeper to truly end revenge porn, once and for all. But in the meantime, full respect to Facebook for actually taking steps in the right direction.

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Daisy Murray
Digital Fashion Editor

Daisy Murray is the Digital Fashion Editor at ELLE UK, spotlighting emerging designers, sustainable shopping, and celebrity style. Since joining in 2016 as an editorial intern, Daisy has run the gamut of fashion journalism - interviewing Molly Goddard backstage at London Fashion Week, investigating the power of androgynous dressing and celebrating the joys of vintage shopping.