A porn studio called Naughty America is under fire from Snapchat after the app banned them from promoting themselves on the app, but the studio returned with new insidious ways to market themselves to users.
Earlier this week, the porn studio began distributing X-rated lenses to Snapchat users, allowing users to position explicit images of adult stars over pictures of their own living rooms (and other things). Snapchat banned the lenses, citing they violated their policy against “obscene language or imagery, depictions of nudity, sex acts, or profanity.” Naughty America insists they were in compliance.
However, the ban might not be enough to keep Naughty America out of Snapchat. Not only did the studio distribute the lenses, they also distributed source files to users so they could make similar lenses themselves, even including a “how-to” manual, according to Variety, instructing people in using the files. This complicates things a lot for Snapchat, which presumably now has to battle threats of adult content from both outside their user base and within their public pool of customers.
There are a few measures in place Snapchat can utilize to defend itself against adult content. There is a policing unit with Snapchat that monitors new filters and targets potential violations for disbandment, and there’s a user-instigated flagging system in which users can ping content they deem to be in violation of the app’s policy.
Still, these measures are limited, and the ensuing cat-and-mouse game between Snapchat and the porn studio raises troubling implications of what it might look like to moderate augmented reality experiences as they become more and more commonplace. Especially as user-generated content becomes more the norm, this will likely continue to be an issue for forward-thinking tech companies.
