Facebook to Provide Additional Insight into How Photos Are Used

Facebook Rights Manager, which helps creators protect unauthorized image use, has been gradually rolling out since it was announced last year. As part of that process, the system can now provide detailed insights to photographers into how photos are used, including unauthorized use.

Image theft as well as unauthorized use — such as users sharing or repurposing content without approval — is something most creatives encounter if they display their work online. To combat this issue, Facebook first introduced a Rights Manager tool in 2016 and announced an updated version of the tool in 2020. It was made with the purpose of leveraging the company’s image matching technology in a way that would help creators maintain authority and protection over their visual content as it is shared across Facebook and Instagram

As of today and noted by AdWeek, Facebook has added insights to this tool. This will give users a more detailed picture of where content is getting used and how it is engaged with. The available information on the insights tool will include several parameters.

“Protection Insights” are used to monitor and apply total blocks on matched content by territory. “Performance Insights” will show how the matched content is performing across both Facebook and Instagram in the form of comments, impressions, likes, and shares. Finally, “Audience Insights” details the demographics of the audience such as their location, what languages they speak, and more.

Any content creators or publishing houses that want to utilize this feature are required to apply on the Rights Manager website. When approved, they are granted access to the tool which lives within Facebook’s Creator Studio platform. From there, users can add content they have created and want to protect, which gets added into a reference library. The Rights Manager algorithm will then use that as a reference point to find any content on Facebook and Instagram that matches it.

The tool was originally launched with a focus on video and allowed users to claim monetization on any footage that was used without permission alongside the ability to direct viewers to the content owner’s original work. This feature is now being made available for image-based content, too. Attempting to manage image misuse and theft has been a contentious issue for artists and business owners across social media platforms and any additional ways to help curtail the problem are likely to be praised. However, it will take some time for creators to determine how well the tool performs in actually combating the widespread issue.

The addition of Insights into the Rights Manager for Images is set to be introduced over the next few weeks.

Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.