Facebook to Crack Down on Child Pornography

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Facebook is about to start cracking down hardcore on child pornography shared through or stored on its site. The social networking site and Microsoft have announced that they will be joining forces in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's (NCMEC) PhotoDNA program to combat child pornography.


The program relies on a technology developed by Microsoft Research called PhotoDNA to digitally analyze images and look for matches in data against other known images of child pornography, which the NCMEC holds. Only photos of prepubescent children (under the age of 12) will be targeted.

According to a post on The New York Times' Gadgetwise blog, PhotoDNA currently can search for matches against 10,000 photos in NCMEC's database of 48 million images and videos. NCMEC has a Congressional mandate to act as a clearinghouse for the sensitive and illegal material to help identify victims and assist law enforcement with investigations, the Times reported.

Microsoft's technology analyzes photos in sections, rather than trying to match an entire image to another complete image, and can even detect matches when the images have been digitally altered.

Facebook's involvement in the program is a significant step toward actively rooting out child pornography online because it is the largest online sharing site for images. The site is also the first online service provider to join Microsoft and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the PhotoDNA project. Facebook will host a FacebookLive event and discussion to formally announce the partnership tomorrow (May 20) at 3 p.m. ET.

Posted by Alain.co @ Friday 20 May 2011 0 comments

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