Sony’s Home For Porn

Like all social networking sites Sony’s “Home” is likely to be a target for adult content. If all human life is to be represented there it’s a fact that adult content will pop up eventually. It’s no good saying that it will be moderated out because even on a relatively small site moderation is a labour-intensive nightmare task requiring moderators to constantly make judgements about new content and react to changes in the way that users user the site. With something that Sony homes will have a large take-up within the PS3 community, Home could be as the ultimate moderation albatross around their necks.

It’s happened before, in Second Life, adult imagery. So will Sony handle it any better? For the moment I think yes, simply because of the limits that “Home” has placed on the users’ ability to customise their avatar and environment. Of course if Sony go for the Second Life crowd with customisation options beyond what the system offers at the moment things could change very quickly.

One console game that does have potential for adult content dissemination is Little Big Planet. As a totally customisable game with the ability to publish worlds to the Internet for use by other “Little Big Planet” users the potential to abuse the system is limitless. Again the creators of the game have claimed they will remove any inappropriate content as soon as they become aware of it, but that’s the problem. It has to appear and therefore be available for users to download before the moderation kicks in. And how long could that take?

As with all user empowerment Home and Little Big Planet have the potential to empower anyone with an agenda or product to sell to make a bloody nuisance of themselves too.