Facebook Could be the Future of Revenge Porn

There was modest celebration in 2009 when Facebook agreed it wouldn’t use your content if you deleted your account. May as well pack it in, NSA! Ha. It’s nice to dream. Anyway, Facebook humoring our illusion of online privacy may have inadvertently created an untraceable way to spread revenge porn.

Facebook just told a Dutch court it couldn’t help them find the person who posted a revenge porn video to the site, sending it out to spread across the world like releasing an ebola monkey in an airport. The anonymous user deleted their account, along with the video, within an hour but by then the clip of the victim, known only as “Chantal,” was uploaded to dozens of other sites. She suspects her unnamed ex-boyfriend, who appears in the clip with her, though he denies any wrongdoing.

Facebook says that for once user data is out of its reach because of the policy to delete such info 90 days after an account is closed.

“The offending account was ultimately deleted before we received any request for user data, so all information about it was removed from our servers in accordance with our terms and applicable law,” the company said in a statement, reported by the BBC.

Assuming that’s true and that even an independent investigator - which the company has suggested - can’t hack to the truth, well then we might have a game changer for sociopaths. Revenge porn has been so prevalent that states keep adopting new legislation, but clearly without the threat of repercussion plenty of guys are willing to post private pics. Unless Facebook changes their policies yet again, which would be a whole new argument over user data, it could corner the market on bitter exes.