Google’s new policy will help revenge porn victims
Victims of revenge porn don’t only have to deal with their nude photos showing up on websites. They also have to deal with the sexually explicit images surfacing in Google searches, sometimes right alongside the faces of colleagues in their fields of study.
Fortunately, the latter’s about to change.
Google announced Friday that it will soon begin to remove these images from searches. In a statement, the company said these photos will be taken down in the same way that other pieces of highly sensitive personal information, such as bank account numbers and signatures, are.
“Our philosophy has always been that Search should reflect the whole web,’’ the company said in the statement. “But revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims—predominantly women.’’
How quickly the images will be removed is yet to be determined, because the form where victims can submit removal requests hasn’t been launched yet. Google said it will post the link in the coming weeks.
Many states have passed legislation to criminalize the posting of revenge porn. Massachusetts is not one of them, though a bill is pending.
While this is progress, Google did say it cannot remove the photos from the websites themselves. However, the statement said they hope removing the photos from search results helps victims.
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