Vine, Twitter's New Video-Sharing App, Already Has A Porn Problem
Vine lets you explore video categories with a hashtag, and a few quick searches for #sex, #porn, and some others that we'd prefer not to write down here show a number of graphic videos that feature male genitalia and recordings of pornographic videos streaming on laptops.
That's just scratching the surface of the graphic content we've seen on Vine so far.
The Vine app allows users to flag videos as inappropriate. If a post is flagged, you get a warning before you tap the video to view it. But many graphic videos are still slipping through.
According to Vine's terms of service, users are responsible for the content they post. However, the terms make no mention of graphic and/or sexual content. Here's a snippet from Vine's ToS:
You are responsible for your use of the Services, for any Content you post to the Services, and for any consequences thereof. The Content you submit, post, or display will be able to be viewed by other users of the Services and through third party services and websites. You should only provide Content that you are comfortable sharing with others under these Terms.
Still, Apple has a strict policy that blocks apps with graphic sexual content. As recently as last week, Apple pulled a photo-sharing app called 500px because it supposedly made it easy to find nude photos. Apple pulled another video-sharing app called Viddy about a year ago because the app featured a lot of lewd content. The format and content on Viddy at the time is nearly identical to what we're seeing on Vine right now.
There's also a disconnect in Apple's policy. It's very easy to find pornographic content using apps like Twitter and the Chrome browser. Sometimes Apple warns you if an app may have "mature/suggestive themes" before you download. Chrome has that warning; Twitter does not.
UPDATE 1/27/2013 5:30 p.m.: Twitter got back to us with a statement saying users can flag graphic sexual content found on Vine and it will remove videos that are inappropriate. Twitter also suggests reading Vine's full terms of service.
Users can report videos as inappropriate within the product if they believe the content to be sensitive or inappropriate (e.g. nudity, violence, or medical procedures). Videos that have been reported as inappropriate have a warning message that a viewer must click through before viewing the video.
Uploaded videos that are reported and determined to violate our guidelines will be removed from the site, and the user that posted the video may be terminated. Please review the Vine Rules (http://vine.co/terms) for more information on these violations.
We've reached out to Apple for comment and will update if we hear back.
UPDATE 1/28/2013 10:00 a.m.: Twitter briefly featured a hardcore pornographic video as an "Editor's Pick" to all Vine users. The video was quickly removed. Read the full story here >
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