Microsoft has embarked on a new mission, to protect the privacy of hundreds of thousands of people, who are victims of "revenge porn". Internet has become a necessity and it has its own pros and cons. Although it is now easier to get any information instantly via the internet, there are also ways to misuse this freedom to hurt others. Revenge porn has escalated to become one of the major concerns of the World Wide Web and software tech giants are trying hard to protect the privacy of victims. Microsoft has joined the fight against "revenge porn" by helping victims to remove images and videos from Bing.
If someone has posted sexually explicit images or videos of you online without your consent, Microsoft is making it easier to report and remove such content from Bing. By doing so, the Redmond-based software titan has joined Google, which commenced the initiative to protect online privacy of users in June.
In an official blog post, Microsoft's Chief Online Safety Officer Jacqueline Beauchere wrote, "As a first step, we want to help put victims back in control of their images and their privacy. That's why Microsoft will remove links to photos and videos from search results in Bing, and remove access to the content itself when shared on OneDrive or Xbox Live, when we are notified by a victim."
Microsoft has a dedicated reporting web page where victims can fill the required details to remove content that has been published without their consent. It's worth noting that, like Google, Microsoft only controls Bing and it can stop revenge porn content from appearing on its search engine. But the content will not be removed from the internet unless contacted different websites.
Even so, this helps a lot of victims as search engines play a vital role in looking for different content on the internet.
Currently, the reporting website is available in English, but it will soon be available in other languages to help users around the world.
