Is child porn the reason Vine banned sexually explicit material?

last updated 8 January 2015

Vine, the Twitter-owned video app, updated its rules last week to block sexually explicit material from appearing on the service. The move left many of its users (especially adult performers) surprised, since porn had been quietly tolerated on Vine. Now, the Daily Dot claims that sexually explicit material by minors as young as 11 is the real reason Vine cleansed the site.

Many of Vine's most popular users are teens, and some of them are posting material that could get Vine into serious trouble. The Dot writes:

One user, for instance, identified as an 11-year-old girl, posted a series of nude videos in which she performs sexual acts alone. Another, who appeared to be between nine and 12 years old, repeatedly exposed herself while describing sexual intercourse in exchanges with someone identifying himself as a 32-year-old male. Another profile, dedicated to aggregating sexual and nonsexual videos of children, contained over 1,700 vines and was followed by 964 users. [Daily Dot]

The comment sections of such posts were disturbingly loaded with sexual innuendo, and featured posts by the app's adult users. Twitter did not confirm if this is why porn was banned. Head on over to the Daily Dot for the startling full report.

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Jordan Valinsky is the lead writer for Speed Reads. Before joining The Week, he wrote for New York Observer's tech blog, Betabeat, and tracked the intersection between popular culture and the internet for The Daily Dot. He graduated with a degree in online journalism from Ohio University.