Porn Hashtag Gets Popular on Twitter App Vine

(Screenshot: USA Today article / Michael Juliani)

The Twitter app Vine offered journalists (professional and citizen alike) a tool for sharing six-second video clips on their feeds. In early demos, Vine CEOs and eager journalists practiced by showing six seconds of the process of making steak tartare and throwing away their coffee cups. But overwhelmingly, users have taken to Vine to post porn on Twitter, according to USA Today.

Tags like #sex and #porn began appearing on the app, and The Verge reported that one porn clip somehow made it as one of Twitter’s Editor’s Picks. (The clip was removed, labeled as a “human error.”)

ALSO SEE: Apple has a porn problem, and it’s about to get worse

As we know, the tools becoming available for citizen journalism are only expanding. While it seems easy to discount Vine for its early rush of X-rated content, perhaps it’s better to say “So what?” After all, journalism will be journalism, and porn will be porn (except if it becomes an Editor’s Pick).

For its part, Twitter released this statement in response:

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). Videos that have been reported as inappropriate have a warning message that a viewer must click through before viewing the video.

Uploaded videos that are reported and determined to violate our guidelines will be removed from the site, and the user that posted the video may be terminated.

Social Media Sites Cover Politics

Tumblr’s GIFs entered the 2012 political conversation. (Flickr Creative Commons: elephantonadiet)

The 2012 debates were definitely important for momentum in the campaign.  But in covering them, we know that one or two moments make for the lasting impressions (Romney’s Big Bird; Biden’s malarkey).  Tumblr has made GIFs and memes so popular that they have become part of the political conversation–and the website hasn’t stopped there.

They’ve hired people to blog about the election, and in doing so have furthered the notion of social media’s primacy in the future of journalism.

YouTube has an election channel, and Yahoo provides extensive news coverage to go with its email services.

While everyone’s still feeling out the best way to use digital tools for journalism, we need to be watching for successful prototypes of what may be successful soon.  Since the 2008 election, social media has earned the respect it’s always deserved.  Now what’s next?

Tsunami e-mail hoaxer jailed

Christopher Pierson, the man who e-mailed around 35 people claiming their relatives had died in the Asian tsunami, was sentenced to six months in jail, according to dotJournalism. Pierson used bulletin boards on Sky News’ Web site to target already panic-stricken families. Judge Daphne Wickham said Pierson’s act had caused “indescribable” pain and grief to unsuspecting relatives. Pierson later admitted his mistake and was charged under the Malicious Communication Act.
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