Teenagers Who Have Shared An Explicit Image Can Use This App To ‘Take It Down’

The internet can be a difficult place to navigate as a teenager. From almost every angle online, many youngsters are met with social pressures and are sometimes made to do things they may regret. One is sharing explicit images with significant others or being coerced by strangers online. With a digital footprint that may forever haunt them, this new app gives teens an escape route.

‘Take It Down’ is placing power back in their hands by allowing them to ensure their pictures are not shared on the internet without their consent. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children operates the service, and Meta has partially funded the project.

The app will allow users to anonymously create a digital fingerprint for the image in question, essentially a set of numbers called a ‘hash’. This then goes into a database where participating companies will remove the picture from their platforms. It also works with deepfakes, a generated render of people who look and can say things incredibly convincingly.

On its website, the service assures users that the image will stay on their devices and will not be uploaded to its system.

The participating sites include Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Mindgeek’s OnlyFans and Pornhub, and Yubo. Twitter and TikTok—arguably two places teens hang out on the most—are currently missing from the list. 

One of the downsides is that if the photo circulates on an encrypted messaging app such as WhatsApp, Take It Down cannot remove it.

Another issue is that if the image is altered (by adding an emoji, cropping it, or turning it into a meme), it will need a new hash to be located on the sites.

Back in 2017, Meta tried to create a similar version for adults. However, it required people to send in the actual picture they needed to be taken down; for obvious reasons, many were uncomfortable doing that.

[via Associated Press News and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, cover screenshot via National Center for Missing and Exploited Children]