Microsoft lets revenge porn victims to remove sexually explicit images from cloud services

Microsoft is upping the ante to combat revenge porn, as the Redmond giant now allowed victims of revenge porn to remove sexually explicit content of themselves from its cloud services.

Users would now be able to fill an online form that gave them the right to report sexually explicit content of theirs including photos and videos.

Additionally, the form had a section that allowed users to add related documents like police reports or a restraining order.

Microsoft was not only removing offensive content from both OneDrive and Xbox Live but also wanted to curb such material showing up in its Bing search results.

''We want to help put victims back in control of their images and their privacy,'' wrote Jacqueline Beauchere, Microsoft's chief online safety officer, in a blog post.

Revenge Porn had long become a tool to victimise people on the web, even to the extent of extortion attempts. Meanwhile, removal of such content had become all the more complex for site owners due to various laws across different international borders.

For instance, in the US, there were protections  around the concept of freedom of speech that did not exist elsewhere in the world. While Europe had laid down the 'right to be forgotten' where users could call on Google and other companies to remove search results showing unwanted or unaccounted information, the issue had become highly controversial.

Currently the form is only in English language, but it would soon expand and have other languages option in the next few weeks to extend the service to a global audience. Bing and Google control 90 per cent of the US search market.

According to Beauchere victims of revenge porn are on the rise across the world. "It can damage nearly every aspect of a victim's life - relationships, career, social activities. In the most severe and tragic cases, it has even led to suicide," she adds.

Reddit and Twitter had initiated similar changes earlier, in February and March, respectively, while Facebook had also put together a similar policy.

Other countries and states in the US had passed laws that made it a crime to post intimate images as revenge porn.

However, going to court could be expensive and time-consuming, and the images remained online while the case was ongoing.