Vine's porn controversy: Twitter's video-sharing app comes under fire thanks to NSFW content

Vine, the video-sharing app recently released by Twitter, now requires users to confirm that they are 17 or over. The move comes after Vine ran into a storm of controversy over adult content just after launch, with hardcore pornography showing up in the "editor's picks" section. Photo-sharing service 500px was also removed from the App Store over adult content fears before returning with a 17+ rating, and Tumblr followed suit by updating its iOS app to require a mature confirmation.

The Vine update released today includes minor bug fixes, the ability to share to Facebook or Twitter after a video has been posted, and functionality for reporting or blocking users, but we've also found that the app now warns us about age-restricted material and forces us to confirm our age.

In the latest development in today's pornography on Vine saga, Twitter's video-sharing app now blocks many searches for pornographic terms. Trying to search for the #porn hashtag (and other terms such as #sex, #boobs, and #booty) brings up no results at this time. However, there are still numerous workarounds — #pornvine is still allowed, for example, as is #nsfw. Users can also still tag Vines with pornographic hashtags, and other users can simply tap on those tags to pull up a feed of videos just like the previous search would have done. However, what's important to note here is that it seems Vine has already begun the process of clearing out and hiding NSFW material — while they will likely never be able to completely rid the service of it, it sounds like it'll at least take a bit more work.

Twitter's video-sharing app Vine continues to find itself embroiled in a bit of a controversy — after exposing a clearly pornographic video in its Editor's Picks section earlier this morning, Apple has decided to hide the app from view as much as possible in the iTunes Store. As noted by Business Insider, Vine was previously highlighted as an Editor's Choice app pick as early as this morning, but that distinction has now been removed. Vine is no longer listed in Apple's "new and noteworthy" section either, and it isn't even highlighted in the "social networking" section of the App Store — despite the fact that it's the number one free social networking app and the number four overall free app as of this writing.

Of course, Apple isn't saying if Vine's de-promotion is due to the recent porn scandal or if it is just part of the natural ebb and flow of the App Store — but it does feel like a quick reversal to us. There's no telling what Apple will do next, as there's certainly more than enough precedent for the company to yank the app altogether. That said, given its high-profile launch and backing by a major player like Twitter, Apple will likely tread carefully in any further dealings with the Vine.

The launch of Twitter's video-sharing service Vine has brought with it another look at pornography on Apple's tightly-controlled iOS platform, and that scrutiny may be about to increase — the current top Editor's Pick when you open the Vine app is a pornographic clip. Since Editor's Picks are inserted into every Vine user's main feed, it seems this video is being pushed out to a huge number of Vine users. The video is hidden behind a NSFW filter and doesn't play automatically, but nonetheless it seems some users aren't exactly happy with having porn automatically inserted into their feed. We're reaching out to Twitter now to find out exactly how this happened, but it's clear that Apple will soon have to respond — if the company can justify pulling highly-regarded photo app 500px from the store due to pornographic concerns, Vine should represent a real issue for the company's porn police force.

Update: Not surprisingly, the offending video has been removed from the Editor's Pick section, and no longer shows up at the top of users' feeds. We're still waiting to hear from Twitter about the issue and will update this post with any new information we receive.