Google Will Remove Revenge Porn from Search Results now. The search giant announced on Friday that it will honor requests to remove intimate images and videos shared without the consent of subjects from its search results. A web form will be soon available for people who want to submit their requests.
Google’s senior vice president of search, Amit Singhal, said in a blog post:
“Our philosophy has always been that Search should reflect the whole web. But revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims — predominantly women.”
“This is a narrow and limited policy, similar to how we treat removal requests for other highly sensitive personal information such as bank account numbers and signatures that may surface in our search results.”
Although the images will still remain on the Internet, but they will be very difficult to find without the help of the world’s biggest search engine.
Google will remove revenge porn largely because of the dissemination of nude celebrity photos obtained by hackers.
Several people have been sentenced to prison on the charges of revenge porn. In April, a San Diego man was sentenced in prison for operating a revenge porn website and charging victims to remove the photos.
Another person named Hunter Moore, popularly called ‘king of revenge porn’, was found guilty to federal computer hacking and identity theft charges. He posted pictures that were submitted to him or acquired by hacking.
The opponents of revenge porn has encouraged this decision that Google will remove revenge porn from search results.
“We’ve been talking to Google for all these years,” said Danielle Citron, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law who advises a group dedicated to fighting the practice. “It’s very gratifying to see this change.”
Google is the recent tech giant to address this type of online harassment. Facebook, Twitter and Reddit have made similar declarations in past few months.