Microsoft has issued an update on its efforts to fight "revenge porn" content on its online services. It stated that it approved 63% of the requests to remove such content on Bing, Xbox Live and OneDrive during the first six months of those efforts.
Microsoft first set up a website in July 2015 to allow anyone to request any nude or sexually explicit photos or videos that have been shared without their permission to be taken down from the company's services. In a blog post this week (opens in new tab), the company stated:
In the first six months that Microsoft began removing links to photos and videos from search results in Bing, and blocking access to the actual content when shared on OneDrive or Xbox Live, we received a total of 537 requests for content takedowns via our dedicated web reporting page. Of those requests, 63 percent (338) were accepted and the remainder have been denied, largely because they were not, in fact, requests to remove non-consensual pornography.
Microsoft will issue updates on those requests every six months, with the next report for the first half of 2016 to be posted in September on its Transparency Hub site. Microsoft has also posted a new video that offers more information to consumers on how they can send their own requests to take down this kind of content.
