No more porn. No more sexually explicit clips. The six-second looping video sharing site Vine has officially cut the unwanted content that has had parents and advocacy groups worried since its official launch in 2013.
The Twitter-owned company announced Thursday the revised Rules and Terms of Service to ban porn and sexually explicit content on Vine.
"We introduced Vine to make it easier for people to find, watch, create and share videos right from their mobile phones. As we've watched the community and your creativity grow and evolve, we've found that there's a very small percentage of videos that are not a good fit for our community," Vine said in a statement.
"For more than 99 percent of our users, this doesn't really change anything. For the rest: we don't have a problem with explicit sexual content on the Internet -- we just prefer not to be the source of it," it added.
The company revealed that it only finds a small percentage of videos that are not fit for its community. Vine is popular with people working in the porn industry to lure in more customers to their own sites. With the ban taking effectively, tough consequences will most likely face user who will dare to post prohibited content.
"Users that violate this policy may be suspended and eligible for account restoration only after they have removed violating posts and certified that their account complies with the Vine Rules. Severe or repeated violation of this policy may result in permanent suspension," the company explained on its support page.
Now, how can one draw the line between what's allowed and what's not?
Depictions of partial or full nudity are still allowed given that it is done for educational, documentary, or artistic purposes. While sexually explicit posts are not allowed, suggestive ones can be on the border and allowed. This means that nude modelling for an art class can be posted as well as nude protestors, mothers breastfeeding, or suggestive dancing, for examples, are allowed.
Graphic depictions of sexual arousal, sexually provocative nudity clips, and sexual acts are obviously banned. To be clearer, the company cited use of sex toys for sex acts, exposed genitalia, and hentai or sexually graphic animation as examples of what are prohibited.
Vine is also encouraging users to report any post that violates the new rules and terms.
While users have only accessed the video sharing service from their mobile devices since its inception, Vine has introduced in January an online version that can do everything its mobile app does. Users can log-in to Vine using their Internet browsers, post clips, share videos, and engage with other users through comments and likes.
