Hey everyone, can you believe that people are using a new video-sharing app to share porn videos? An app that makes it easy to record quick clips and share them on Twitter? People? The internet? Porn? Crazy.
Sarcasm aside, Twitter’s new 6-second video app Vine is already full of porn. And that’s potentially a huge problem for Twitter and Vine.
First off, let’s make it clear that having NSFW content on Vine isn’t really a problem on its own. Besides the slip up of showing a girl using a sex toy as an “Editor’s pick” earlier today, Vine makes it fairly difficult to simply stumble upon a giant cache of 6-second porn.
The home feed of editor picks is (usually) SFW, and the explore feature doesn’t consist of any hand-picked NSFW categories. On the Vine app, they suggest hashtags like #pets, #food, #fashion – but no #penis #porn or #ass. Sure, you can search for those latter hashtags within the app – and you’ll definitely find what you’re looking for. But then again, you’re actively looking for it at that point.
And Vine even has a mechanism for putting another layer between your eyes and some random person’s junk. If a video is tagged as inappropriate, Vine will throw up a warning screen that users must tap through to access the NSFW content. “WARNING: This post may contain sensitive content,” reads the message.
Also, if you want to see just how much of a non-issue the porn thing is on Vine right now, check out Vinepeek. That single-purpose site provides an unmoderated stream of the latest Vine videos. I watched it for quite some time and I saw no porn. Literally, zero NSFW videos. Plenty of dogs, babies, more dogs, and food – but no penises, no vaginas, no boobs, no butts.
Plus, there’s no ban on nudity in Vine’s ToS. There are bans on impersonation, spam, abuse, harassment, copyright infringement – but no porn ban. Being that Vine is a Twitter product, this should come as no surprise.
And as far as Vine porn existing outside the app’s walls (let’s say on Twitter), the fact remains that you’re probably only going to see Vine porn if you’re looking for it (for the most part). At least no more than you’re likely to see porn on Twitter anyway, seeing as to how Twitter is one of the few social networks that doesn’t ban nudity in posts.
If you follow people who like to post 6-second porn, you’re going to see 6-second porn. If you search “vine #nsfw” or “wine #porn” on Twitter, you’re going to find what you’re looking for. It’s a simple as that.
But though porn shouldn’t be considered a “problem” for Vine on that level – it could be a problem in another way. A really, really, huge problem.
Last week, Apple yanked photo-sharing app 500px from its App Store.
“The app was removed from the App Store for featuring pornographic images and material, a clear violation of our guidelines. We also received customer complaints about possible child pornography. We’ve asked the developer to put safeguards in place to prevent pornographic images and material in their app,” said Apple.
As you’re probably well aware, Apple is really serious on the no porn thing among apps it approves for its App Store. Yeah, it’s ludicrous at times. They essentially just banned an app for letting users search for adult content. It’s a good thing that an app like Google Chrome or even Apple’s Safari doesn’t allow people to find porn.
For Vine, this should be a bit troubling. Maybe the content safeguard screen will be enough to assuage Apple’s concerns. Maybe not. You can find images of boobs all over Twitter, but not only has the Twitter app remained in Apple’s good graces for years, but Twitter has been integrated into iOS.
It’s possible that Apple will leave Vine alone, at least for the time being. But if Vine becomes an app that primarily caters to 6-second porn (as in it becomes to majority, not the exception), it’s going to have a hard time hanging around the App Store.
