|
I used to work for an also-ran social network (20m users), and this was a big problem for them too, particularly when they found that they were a popular option for sharing CP. When I say a big problem, it's really an existential threat for any kind of user generated content sharing site. Yes, you need a way of finding and flagging this stuff. Algorithms help, but people always need to be involved, and that's problematic. It can be hard to find people that want to be exposed to this material as their full-time job, and it's a liability headache. Even if some employees are ok with being exposed to it as part of their jobs, other employees might have a legitimate expectation of not having to be exposed at their workpace, and it's difficult to contain. Yes, you will need to develop a relationship with law enforcement. They have a number of programs for submitting evidence, they're actually quite easy-to-use, and they are cooperative if you follow their rules. Even so, it's time consuming, and if you don't maintain a good relationship and comply fully, then you can become a target for enforcement. You say you've become moderately successful in terms of traffic, but there's a big proportion of dubious content. Frankly, this means that certain people have noticed that your site is not as good at identifying, flagging, and reporting this content, so they're gravitating to you, having been kicked out of facebook, etc. That's fine in the short term, in the long term it's unsustainable from a business and legal perspective. Either you'll need to devote more resources to fighting this (instead of development, marketing, more interesting things), and find a way to attract more legitimate users, or you will become the next attractive target for legal issues. This is not a simple problem that can be solved with mechanical turk, an algorithm, etc. It's a never-ending game of cat and mouse, walls and ladders, and a fundamental problem to be dealt with on any site that allows sharing. It's not just sexual stuff, there's also copyright - the music and movie industries are pretty keen about finding targets too. It might be feasible to compete with facebook on product, or popularity with niche audiences, but competing with them on their ability to keep bad content off their site so that it's palatable for a wide audience is a lot harder. That's their core business, and they employ a lot of humans to make it work. |