San Francisco (AFP) – Facebook on Wednesday unleashed a new weapon in the war against «revenge porn» at the leading social network as well as the messaging services Messenger and Instagram.

When intimate images shared on Facebook without permission are reported, confirmed and removed, the company will use photo-matching technology to prevent copies from being shared on its platform anew.

«When this content, often referred to as ‘revenge porn,’ is reported to us, we can now prevent it from being shared on Facebook, Messenger and Instagram,» the head of global safety Antigone Davis said in a blog post.

«This is part of our ongoing effort to help build a safe community on and off Facebook.»

In most cases, Facebook disables accounts on which intimate images are shared without permission, according to Davis.

Users trying to share pictures after they have been removed as revenge porn will see alerts explaining the images violate Facebook policy and that posting them has been prevented.

«We look forward to building on these tools and working with other companies to explore how they could be used across the industry,» Davis said.