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Facebook Wants Nude Selfies to Combat ‘Revenge Porn'

One in 25 Americans who use the internet have had sensitive images posted without their permission or have had someone threaten to do so, according to a 2016 study

Facebook is asking some users to send nude photos of themselves in an effort to combat social media "revenge porn."

People in Australia who are concerned that a former partner may distribute intimate photos of them on Facebook can use Messenger to send the photos to be "hashed," according to the office of Australia's e-safety commissioner.

Users would fill out a form before sending the message to themselves using the Messenger app. Facebook said the process involves storing image-matching data, and the photos themselves would not be saved, though they would be reviewed by a trained Facebook team.

Australian e-safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said it is one of four countries — the others being the U.S., U.K. and Canada — participating in the test program, but Facebook told "Today" that it is still in talks with the other three nations about expanding there.

"This pilot has the potential to disable the control and power perpetrators hold over victims, particularly in cases of ex-partner retribution and sextortion, and the subsequent harm that could come to them," Inman Grant said in a statement.

One in 25 Americans who use the internet have had sensitive images posted without their permission or have had someone threaten to do so, according to a study from the Data & Society Research Institute last year. The U.S. Marines were hit by a non-consensual image-sharing scandal this year, prompting Commandant Gen. Robert B. Neller to ask the men in his Corps this March, "How much more do the females of our Corps have to do to be accepted?"

In the digital world today, deleting something never really deletes it, Adam Levin, founder of cybersecurity firm CyberScout, told "Today."

"The reality is that we're living in a world where breaches have become the third certainty in life, where hackers are sophisticated, they're determined, they're persistent, they're very creative and there is no right to be forgotten," Levin said.

Outside of the Facebook Messenger pilot project, anyone who thinks they have been a victim of revenge porn can report the photos through Facebook's dedicated reporting process, revamped in April.

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