How Video Sharing Apps Keep Porn Out
Just like Vine, pretty much any of the other "Instagram for video" platforms that have come out in the last couple of years have experienced an inundation of inappropriate content. That's great for Twitter's version because it can learn some quick porn eradication lessons before Apple kicks it out of the app store. For example, Viddy, "a simple way to share well-produced, bite-size videos with the world," had a similar scandal when it first hit the app store, which led Apple to eventually pull the app. But, after some adjustments, the app made its way past Apple's gatekeepers. Trying to find pornos on the app today is difficult, if not impossible. Mobli, another similar service, saw a influx of dirty material when it first launched, too. Yet, it still exists in Apple's anti-porn bubble. And Vine can, too. Here's how:
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Hand-by-Hand Deletion
The Process: If a porno comes across the Mobli platform, one of the members of the staff deletes it, Mobli's VP of Marketing, Dino Decespedes told The Atlantic Wire. While the company's staff keeps 24 hour surveillance on its app, it also uses a third-party service to help with the takedowns.
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Pros: When a human does something that means a computer can't mess it up. A person will know if something crosses the line, which for Mobli means showing certain body parts, like nipples.
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Cons: It takes a lot humans to watch every video and things can slip through. Decespedes told the Wire the people at Mobli delete 50 to 100 items each day.
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Community Alert System
The Process: Have members flag inappropriate content. Lots of video and picture sharing app do this. Mobli has what it calls the "Mobli Braintrust" a community of beta users that are active about keeping the service clean.
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Pros: This helps eliminate some of the burden with the individual method described above.
Cons: Sometimes totally appropriate non-porny things get flagged. Mobli takes stuff down if it gets two or three reports, said Decespedes.
Tag Bans
The Process: Ban any posts with certain inappropriate hashtags, like NSFW, DildoPlay, etc. Viddy does this, maintaining a list of keywords which, if used in a title or description, are automatically flagged and then removed, if deemed not-OK by a moderator. It looks like Vine has also started to do this.
Pros: This requires no human energy, just machines.
Cons: On the sex-video posting side, it's kind of easy to get around this by creating new hashtags. For example, #pornvine still pulls up some six second nudity on Vine right now, even though tags like #porn and #sex don't surface much anymore. Viddy says it updates its list of banned tags pretty regularly. Also, since a person isn't here to judge, some OK videos might get taken down. If someone uses the term #porn ironically, for example, their video won't be posted. Machines don't do irony.
Porn Search Ban
The Process: In addition to flagging certain hashtags, apps can make certain keywords unsearchable. So, if someone does post a sex-clip tagged with #porn, the app can make that post "unsearchable," basically rendering it invisible to most users.
Pros: Again, an automated system reduces the human labor required.
Cons: The porn still exists on the site. So anyone who follows a user that posts the inappropriate porn will see it.
User Probation Period
The Process: Don't let users have searchable profiles until they prove that they can post appropriate videos. Viddy does this, requiring members to build up a profile with multiple shares and likes before the stuff gets pushed out to a wider audience.
Pros: This ensures spammers and one-off posters don't inundate the site. This one would probably help Vine most, since we suspect people posting 6 second pornos did it more for the novelty than pleasure.
Cons: That's kind of annoying for the average user who doesn't post that often, but still wants to be a part of the community. Also, someone trying to game the system could play prude for awhile and then post unsuspecting porns.
Vine could and should use a combination of all of the solutions above if it wants to get the porn under control. Now, it might not want to do that because of Twitter's long history with censorship, or lack thereof. But, if it doesn't want to hear from Apple, it might want to consider taking some of these measures. Porn will always exist on these communities. Vine can, however, make it a little less accesible.
