Is Twitter The Biggest Porn Site In The World?

The South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) recently released a report outlining measures to reduce the risk of exposure – accidental or intentional – to adult material online by children. 

The most worrying of these is that none of the proposed regulations apply to social media – specifically sites like Twitter and Reddit.

The problem is that social media sites and search engines are viewed as “ancillary service providers.” As such, adult content found on social media is not defined as “online commercial pornography” and is therefore exempt from having to adhere to the new age-verifiction legislation proposals. The best that governments can do is ask these sites to take action against those who don’t comply with general content guidelines. But if none is actually taken, there’s nothing the Powers That Be can currently do to penalise them.