Vine video-sharing app raises age rating to 17+

Vine, Twitter’s new mobile video-sharing app, has had its age rating increased after it was flooded with explicit videos.

The age limit has been raised from 12+ on Apple’s store to 17+, which is the highest rating.

Vine was launched last month and within days hundreds of explicit videos were uploaded, leading to complaints from angry users.

Twitter was forced to apologize just weeks after the launch when a six-second pornographic clip was promoted as an “editor’s pick”.

The new rating is used for videos with “frequent/ intense sexual content or nudity”.

Vine users are asked to confirm they are over 17 by clicking on a window, but that is the only age verification system in place.

Videos are not vetted before being uploaded but it has been announced that users will be able to block or report items they find offensive.

Vine – dubbed the Instagram for video – is designed to encourage members to share clips recorded on their smartphones.

It extends Twitter’s 140-character ethos to video, with clips limited to just six seconds.

When the explicit video appeared in January, children’s charities said it was an example of how easily children can stumble on pornographic images.

Twitter blamed human error and had the video removed.

A spokesman said at the time: “A human error resulted in a video with adult content becoming one of the videos in Editor’s Picks, and upon realizing this mistake we removed the video immediately.

“We apologize to our users for the error.”

Twitter has also restricted searchable items. Users can no longer get results by searching words such as p***, sex and naked.