Unwanted Content, Porn or Adult Content

The down and dirty guide to eliminating unwanted adult content

Unwanted adult content on your paper.li can be like an unpleasant slap in the face.  Here at paper.li, we have filters in place to filter out unwanted adult articles.  

You may have noticed that when you created your paper, the "adult" Category is by default, unselected.  Unfortunately, by not checking "adult", we can not guarantee that all adult material (especially photos and videos) will be blocked.  Why is this?

"Adult" Photos and Videos

It's important to be aware that photos and videos are a different can of worms, so to speak.  Although we do sort out any images or videos from your paper that have text in the tweet that we consider "porn words", it is extremely complex for software to be able to filter out porn images and videos, based on the image and video alone.  We are unable to determine if a photo or video is "adult" unless one or more of the words in the the accompanying tweet matches our list of "porn words".  Why do I mention twitter only?  Because in almost all of the cases we have seen so far, unwanted adult content is pulled into a paper due to a keyword search on twitter.

You can avoid having unwanted content in your paper by following a few simple tips:

• Know Your Sources: The best quality content comes from sources that you are familiar with, or that you trust. Following reputable sources, people or brands that are familiar to you, or Tweeps recommended by friends will ensure that your content remains quality.   

• Curate from Twitter Lists and RSS: Create a twitter list with trusted sources and add the list as a source. It is one of the best ways to ensure that undesired content doesn't sneak in. Another great source for secure and bullet proof content is via RSS. If the site you follow offers a broad range of content and you are only interested in one specific topic, add a filter to the RSS feed once you have added it as a source.  

• Eliminate Videos and photos: In the case where you curate your paper based on keyword or #tag searches on twitter, you will need to take extra care to be sure that unwanted photos or videos will be pulled into your paper with a #tag. If a #tag is trending on twitter, adult content providers will take advantage of this fact by adding the #tag or keyword to their content to broadcast their material far and wide.  Although we do our best to filter out undesirable content, it is impossible for us to filter out photos or videos that use #tags with no other indication in the tweet that adult content is being shared.   If you are curating content based on keyword searches, the safest bet to be sure that unwanted content does not slip into your paper is to uncheck photos and videos in your Paper Sections Settings.

• Filter it: Filterscan help somewhat in filtering out some of the undesired adult content on twitter but take note that if the twitter user does not include the word you have filtered out in his/her tweet, the inappropriate content can still sneak in. Unwanted content can still worm its way into a paper with innocuous hashtag searches.

Too late?  Have unwanted adult content in your paper?

Despite your best efforts, if unwanted inappropriate content worms its way into your paper, don't panic.  Here are some actions you can take:

• Block it!: Block content sources or news spotters that you don't want appearing in your paper with the blacklisting functionality.

• Zap it!: X marks the spot, so delete it! If you see something you don't like, zap it with the delete button. Any publisher can delete (or reposition) content when they are logged in to their account.