Recently, social media has been used more and more by people to share copyrighted material. In response to this, Facebook has patended a new invention which allows them to determine whether the files that are being shared are copyrighted.
From what I can tell, Facebook is not actually reading the files that are being uploaded. I suspect this is because by doing so they would be grossly invading the privacy of its users. Instead, Facebook is using social signals to determine whether the files themselves are copyrighted.
What is slightly worrying in terms of privacy is wide definition of “social signals”. According to Facebook a social signal can be something as simple as the number of users liking the post, or something much more complicated such as the diversity of all the people who viewed the uploaded content.
If through these social signals Facebook finds reason to believe that the uploaded content does infringe copyright or any other intellectual property right, the content is either immediately deleted or sent for further consideration.
Source:
http://torrentfreak.com/facebook-uses-social-signals-to-stop-piracy-131203/
