Binu Paul email: b.paul@mobilenapps.com
As speculated, Twitter's new video-sharing application Vine has developed a serious porn problem and as of now, the explicit contents remain there due to Twitter's censorship-free policy and Vine's not so strict in terms of sexual content.
The Vine app, released on Thursday, allows iPhone and iPod Touch users to create and share six-second videos on the micro-blogging Web site. Shortly after its release, the app became a tool for many to post videos of male genitalia and other pornographic clips taped off TVs and laptops.
The rush of pornographic content to the app was first noticed by The New York Times' Nick Bilton who said searched for #porn, #sex, and other related tags bring up videos of male exhibitionism and other associated activity.
"Friend: 'So are people using Vine for porn yet?' Me: 'Nah, I don't think so.' Friend: 'Check the hashtag #porn.' Both: 'Holy ****!'" he tweeted.
As The Atlantic Wire notes, Vine is perfect for porn as it allows users to record reasonably high quality videos of anything of their choice, publish it for the public on the Internet that can be accessed by anyone, and users can even add hashtags making it easy for surfers to find the clips of their interest.
Twitter, a company known for its anti-censorship stance, urged users to use good judgment when posting content while Vine's terms of service does not really forbid sexually explicit content.
"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," the company posting said.
Meanwhile, Facebook executive Justin Osofsky (Director, Platform Partnerships and Operations) presented an explanation into what went behind blocking Vine from accessing Facebook friends. The clarification, which did not include a direct reference to Vine, said the company policies do not allow apps to duplicate any network core functionality.
"Our goal is to provide a platform that gives people an easy way to login to your apps, create personalized and social experiences, and easily share what they're doing in your apps with people on Facebook," Osofsky wrote.
"For a much smaller number of apps that are using Facebook to either replicate our functionality or bootstrap their growth in a way that creates little value for people on Facebook, such as not providing users an easy way to share back to Facebook, we've had policies against this that we are further clarifying today (see I.10)," the post said giving a proper clarification whether the social media giant believes Vine's app duplicates any central part of its product.
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