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Feminist Techie Develops Plugin That Auto-Deletes Unsolicited Nude Photos From Twitter DMs

By Akinwale Akinyoade

18 February 2020   |   11:28 am

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If you are active on the microblogging platform Twitter then you may be familiar with some other users complaining from time to time about receiving unsolicited nude photos in their direct messages (DM). In what can be considered a smart move to curb the sending of unsolicited nudes on its platform, Twitter is working on…

Kelsey Bressler / Pluralist

If you are active on the microblogging platform Twitter then you may be familiar with some other users complaining from time to time about receiving unsolicited nude photos in their direct messages (DM).

In what can be considered a smart move to curb the sending of unsolicited nudes on its platform, Twitter is working on introducing a new “Safe DM” plugin.

The plugin is meant to filter out unsolicited nude pictures from your DMs before it even reaches you.

Developer Kelsey Bressler has said that sending nudes is the “virtual equivalent of flashing someone in the street” and as a response to the offensive act, she has developed an app that is meant to delete unsolicited nudes i the DM.

Explaining her app’s idea to BBC, she said she got the inspiration to create it when she received an unwanted nude from a man on Twitter.

Twitter is finally taking a stance against unsolicited dick pics, once and for all. According to Business Insider, the tech company recently began testing out a brand new plugin called Safe DM that launched on Friday that’s supposed to filter out unsolicited nudes.

Bressler trained the algorithm to determine when nude photos were being sent in.

She explained that the app only detects the photo and doesn’t actually process the text within the message itself

“We would like to roll this out on other social media platforms and are discussing where to go next,” she told BBC.

In September 2019, Bressler tested her app by soliciting pictures to a Twitter page and she reportedly recorded a 99% success rate with over 4000 photos sent in.

Bressler who is a former chief technology officer for revenge porn activist group Badass Army, solicited the photos from her 7,000 Twitter followers at the time.

“This is not a joke,” Bressler explained in a tweet. “I am testing a filter that is under development which will automatically detect dick pics in DMs and handle them on behalf of the user (delete, delete&block).”

Buzzfeed later tested out the app, confirming that it was successful. Perhaps this is a sign that Bressler’s new plugin will set a new precedent for social media companies moving forward.

In the post-#MeToo era, some progressives and feminists have viewed unsolicited dick pics as an issue related to the harassment women face in a patriarchal society.