MANILA, Philippines – Call it the unintended consequences of app usage. Vine, Twitter’s newly-released video sharing-app, has been receiving its fair share of attention recently as a subset of its userbase is taking advantage of the app by sharing looping videos of genitalia or pornography.

The app allows people to not only share video loops, but also search through publicly shared videos using Twitter’s hashtag system. Unfortunately, Business insider notes how searches of hashtags related to sex and pornography have been coming back with results of exactly what people would expect, including recordings of laptops playing pornographic videos.

While Vine’s terms of service make people responsible for their posted content,Twitter has noted how users can flag inappropriate videos for removal, with nudity included under that clause in their terms.

Apple, whose app store offers the Vine application, now has to deal with the repercussions of Vine with regard to a disconnect in its policy implementation.

The Verge notes how Apple previously removed photo-sharing application 500px from its app store due to pornography concerns. Apple also removed Viddy, another video-sharing app, last year due to lewd content. Despite these prior cases, Vine managed to get approval.

The publicity regarding Vine’s unintended uses may make Apple either change its policies or reconsider keeping Vine on the store. In the meantime, users will have to contend with flagging inappropirate videos on Vine till something changes. – Rappler.com