Google to Remove Revenge Porn Images from Search Results

From the BBC:

Victims of revenge porn will be able to put in requests to Google to take down content from search results. 

The images will still exist but won't come up on a list when people look for them.
In a blog post the company's Vice President Amit Singhal said it will apply to "nude or sexually explicit images". 

Google has, in the past, resisted attempts for it to take down online content from those search results. 

The update is expected to come in over the next couple of weeks.

Google's announcement regarding these requests can be found here.

Revenge porn occurs when people post nude photos of somebody else online without the pictured person's consent. It is one of many ways the Internet can be used to harass and attack people. Danielle Citron goes into great deal about revenge porn and other forms of online harassment in her excellent book, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace. And just yesterday, John Oliver's "Last Week Tonight" had this segment on online harassment and revenge porn:



I have blogged several times about state laws that prohibit revenge porn and whether they are constitutional. For example, I think that properly tailored laws can prohibit revenge porn without violating the First Amendment. But while laws prohibiting revenge porn may help combat the problem of revenge porn, laws alone are not enough without the involvement of companies like Google.

While images of revenge porn may still exist online, Google's promise to exclude them from search results upon request is a significant step towards lessening the impact of these images on victims' lives.