Microsoft joining the fight against revenge porn

Microsoft is launching a new website dedicated to allowing victims of "revenge porn" to report abuse.

Users will make takedown requests of sexually explicit images and videos shared online without their consent, and Microsoft will then make sure they won't pop up on Bing search results, the company announced Wednesday. If the image or video is hosted on one of Microsoft’s storage platforms, like Xbox Live, it will be deleted. In a blog post, Microsoft said, "By helping to address requests and to remove these extremely personal photos and videos from our services, we can better support victims as they work to re-claim their privacy, and help to push just a little further in the fight against this despicable practice."

The idea of delisting sites from search engines is similar to a principle referred to as "the right to be forgotten," The Washington Post reports. In Europe, people can ask companies like Google to remove things they don't want listed from search results. A photo could remain online and found via a different search engine, but it would be hidden from Google users. Legal analysts don't believe this would fly in the U.S. due to censorship and First Amendment concerns, but there could be a more restrained version. As Brian Fung writes, "we're seeing now with Google and Microsoft, some companies are concluding that it's much better to protect the privacy of their users than to adopt a maximalist view of free speech."

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