Twitter bosses have been forced to issue an apology to users after the site’s much-heralded video streaming service Vine – launched only last week – managed to display explicit pornographic footage as its “editor’s pick”.
It is designed to encourage the twitterati to share six-second clips recorded on their smartphones “in a simple and fun way for friends and family to see”. Yet millions of viewers clicking on the editor’s pick section have been met with a mini porno movie.
The issue first emerged over the weekend, although Twitter was unbowed at that stage, simply saying: “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).”
Now the social media firm has been forced to back-track over the cock-up, which it has blamed on its internal processes. A spokesman said: “A human error resulted in a video with adult content becoming one of the videos in editor’s picks, and upon realising this mistake we removed the video immediately. We apologise to our users for the error.”
Dubbed as “Instagram for video”, Vine extends Twitter’s 140-character ethos. According to the company’s blub: “The brevity of videos on Vine inspires creativity. Now that you can easily capture motion and sound, we look forward to seeing what you create.”
Apple policy does not allow pornography in the App Store and last week banned a popular photography app, 500px, that had a “nude” category. Pornography in Vine is similarly easily accessible via related hashtags, according to reports.
