Justin.tv Is Turning Porn Queries Into Cash
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Justin.tv uses a variety of common tools to effectively reduce the amount of inappropriate content on the site including: community-based reporting, community admins, chat moderation and redirecting sex-related search queries.
Lets be clear, this isn't the magical solution for monetizing Web 2.0, these tools exclusively help us to improve the community experience on the site.
Yes, because 16 year old boys who searched for porn are going to click no when asked if they're over 18.
On the other hand, I'm not a lawyer.
"(there seems to be no such confirmation found on at least some of the redirected porn sites)."
People who want porn get porn. People who want money (ie Justin.tv) get money.
Unfortunately, there are definitely issues.
Some 8-year-old kid is going to search for the awesome new channel about secant that everyone in 3rd grade is talking about. Since the c is next to the x, he's going to accidentally type "sex" instead of "sec". 5 seconds later, he says "mommy, what is that?", and 10 seconds later Justin.tv has a very, very angry parent on their hands.
Ok, maybe that's a little unrealistic. But people are going to complain about it.
Btw, after trying out the redirect, there is in fact no "pornographic" material on the entry page.
EDIT: this comment was not meant to be a reply to your comment, jackowayed. (oops! sorry.)
It's a redirect. So as long as the actual porn site is blocked, Justin.tv doesn't need to be. Normal Justin.tv is fine, and if someone does get redirected to porn, the filter should grab it there when it tries to load hot-porn.com or whatever.
(I have no problem with it either, I just don't see a comparison to it with Google. Google doesn't ban porn, doesn't redirect, etc.)
If some kid turns 'safe search' off in google and types in 'porn' - will the parents get mad at google?
User looks up xxx on Google for xxx
The intent is different and the auto-redirect, even at 5 seconds, is troubling.
Not sure where you derived them, but my only point was: usually when enough outraged people are outraged someone/some company gives in. Unfortunate, but true. Personally, I think it's a great idea.
Secondly, actual users of our site have not complained, except for a few of our mods who say it makes it harder for them to find bad channels and flag them. So it's likely to last quite a while, since it's very successful in its goal.
Interesting idea to give the adult searchers what they really want. The problem is that adult content is still too taboo for many folks.
The roughly same comments are found in this thread on Hacker News.
We are unfortunately still living in a time when many people are not open minded.
-Larry
Justin.tv directs me to a porn site.
It's wrong to just blindly forward people to porn when most of them are younger kids.
If a parent has an issue then either talk to your kid about NOT searching for porn or simply block the site.
Is that over the top? Maybe. But think about who looks up the word "Sexy" on a live video stream... I think they're on the right track in some way. Well, I don't necessarily think they're doing the right thing like this, but certainly if you have moral qualms with it, feel free to not use their service. I'm not sure this is a reason to stop using their service. Still, I think it might be better if maybe they had a button that said "Yes, redirect me" instead of only waiting five (only five?) seconds. Or, if Justin.tv is really using this to keep bad content off their site, why don't they block those terms completely? It's not like redirecting users to a porn site is the best alternative...not to mention all this bad press.
You have forever tied the reputation and business of Justin.tv to porn. It doesn't matter if you host it or not, it doesn't matter if you warn users, you are forever associated with a market that millions of advertisers, investors, and users are adverse to. The TechCrunch porn article is already beginning to appear in search results - how long until any search for your website has articles about you and porn on it? And how long will casual users watch until they bounce?
It screams desperation because it isn't a business model, it's a stop-gap. The streaming video websites, including you, have yet to prove that you can make sustainable revenues that trump costs, which is the point of every business on the planet.
Once you realize that you've tarnished the reputation of Justin.tv forever and that it will create an artificial barrier to growth, it will be too late.
At least, that's how I see it.
So sensational. What percentage of users are even aware of this feature?
>It screams desperation because it isn't a business model, it's a stop-gap.
That's a straw man argument. No one said it's a business model.
>Once you realize that you've tarnished the reputation of Justin.tv forever
Now that's hyperbole. While you're certainly entitled to your own opinion don't you think you're overreacting a little? What would your reaction be if they actually had porn on their site?
Lots of people inside the tech industry don't get it, but Justin.tv is bigger than Techcrunch, gets more pageviews than Digg, does about as many video streams per month as Hulu, and is largely used by people outside the tech sector who neither know nor care about the politics of Silicon Valley. Those people are gamers, music fans, and social networkers from all around the world; they like the site for what it is and for the service it provides, not for how it is portrayed in the media.
Lastly, this isn't a monetization method. If it was, we'd remove it from the site because it doesn't really make any money. What it does do is serve as a tarpit for users searching for content that doesn't have a place on our site. And ultimately we've found that in conjunction with our other community moderation tools, we've significantly reduced abuse incidences on the site. Which is a win for our community.
It functions as an escape valve for an element that you will attract anyway, no matter how much work you put into keeping things clean.
Your observation about the news is spot on, we once had a guy hang himself on camera before we caught on to what was happening, lots of bad press, angry letters from users and so on, within 5 days of the event things were back to normal. Still one of the most shocking experiences in my career.
Oh yeah, sex is evil. I get it.