Google plans to exclude “revenge porn” from its internet searches in future, limiting the spread of unauthorised nude or sexually explicit photos and videos posted on websites by spurned ex-partners without the subject’s consent.
Amit Singhal, a senior vice-president, announced in a post on the Google public policy blog on Friday that the company would soon issue online forms through which members of the public will be able to request that revenge porn content involving them no longer show up in Google searches. Links to such images will not be included in Google search results on that person, though they will remain online.
Singhal said Google had no control over the websites to which such images were originally posted. But cutting links out of searches will help limit the damage to victims of revenge porn – “predominantly women”, he said.
The step is a major shift for the leading search engine, which normally resists attempts at censorship on internet content showing up in searches. But Google decided to make an exception regarding the unauthorised sharing of nude photos, images often posted by ex-spouses or partners or extortionists demanding money to take down such pictures, all without the consent of the people shown.
“Revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims – predominantly women,” Singhal wrote.
Laws against the publishing of revenge porn have been passed in 21 US states and legislation for a federal ban is expected to be introduced in Congress later this year. Twitter, Facebook and Reddit have already banned nude photos from being posted without the subject’s permission.
