---
title: "Facebook Knows When Someone Posts Your Nudes — but Won’t Tell You"
description: "Facebook's plan to block revenge porn by storing digital fingerprints of lewd photos to cross-reference new uploads doesn't involve informing victims."
date: "2019-05-31"
modified: "2019-05-31"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-posts-nudes"
categories:
  - "Future Society"
tags:
  - "facebook"
  - "privacy"
  - "the digest"
---

# Facebook Knows When Someone Posts Your Nudes — but Won’t Tell You

![Facebook's plan to block revenge porn by storing digital fingerprints of lewd photos to cross-reference new uploads doesn't involve informing victims.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/facebook-posts-nudes.png>)
*\<em\>Image: Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

## 404

If someone tries to upload revenge porn — naked pictures of a former partner shared online to "punish" or harass them — or any other nudes of someone else to Facebook, the site claims that its automated system will be able to detect and prevent it.

But the would-be victims of that revenge porn would never know it happened, [reports *The Daily Dot*](<https://www.dailydot.com/debug/facebook-revenge-porn/>), as Facebook will not send out any notifications about the attempt. It's a surprising level of secrecy around a system meant to block criminal behavior on the platform, especially given that further harassment could happen elsewhere.

## Sealed Vault

As Futurism [reported last year](<https://futurism.com/facebook-wants-protect-your-nudes>), Facebook's plan involves creating "digital fingerprints" for lewd or compromising pictures that were pre-emptively shared with Facebook's security team.

If anyone else tried to post a picture matching that digital fingerprint, the upload would be blocked.

## Closed Doors

The decision to keep would-be victims in the dark is confusing. Sending would-be victims a push notification about attempted harassment could be traumatizing, [reports *Gizmodo*](<https://gizmodo.com/facebook-screws-up-a-critical-piece-of-its-anti-revenge-1835133373>), but the blanket decision to not tell *anyone* could keep people from taking action to prevent further harassment. *Gizmodo* advocates for an option to opt-in to notifications about an attempted revenge porn upload.

While the "digital fingerprint" program still raises plenty of questions about privacy, it seems like a no-brainer to not insist on keeping people in the dark about attempts to harass them online.

**READ MORE:** [Facebook Screws Up a Critical Piece of Its Anti-Revenge Porn Tech](<https://gizmodo.com/facebook-screws-up-a-critical-piece-of-its-anti-revenge-1835133373>) \[*Gizmodo*\]

**More on privacy:** *[Facebook Wants To Protect Your Nudes By Storing them as a “Digital Fingerprint”](<https://futurism.com/facebook-wants-protect-your-nudes>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)