Twitter Blocks Children From Vine Videos, 17+ Rating

All it takes is for one bad apple to spoil the bunch, and when a Twitter staff member inadvertently selected a pornographic Vine video as an Editor's Pick, all hell broke loose and it was suddenly "Game over, man!" for teens under the age of 17 years old. Twitter quickly yanked the video and apologized for what it deemed "human error," but to prevent something like that from happening again, the microblogging site now requires that users certify they are at least 17 years old before downloading the app.

Vine is a relatively new app, having only launched a month ago. At the time, it carried a 12+ rating, but that's not been bumped to 17+ due to a laundry list of adult themes, including:

• Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References
• Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes
• Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity
• Infrequent/Mild Realistic Violence
• Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
• Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes
• Infrequent/Mild Simulated Gambling

Teens are on the honor system with this one, as no actual age verification actually takes place. Ironically enough, this might ultimately make Vine all the more appealing to teens, even though Vine wasn't originally intended for illicit videos. At the same time, Vine doesn't forbid sexually suggestive content either, and requires double-clicking on videos marked as inappropriate.