Addressing Porn on Social Networks

On Friday evening we linked to a story that looked at the traffic to Ning and that a good percentage of it was coming from the porn networks built on the Ning system.

Founder Marc Andressen posted a lengthy reply last night about the porn on Ning and it’s well worth a read. In it, Marc notes that Ning is "pro-freedom" whatever that means. He then goes on to say, “we think a better approach is to let people fundamentally do what they want, as long as it isn’t illegal and doesn’t otherwise violate our terms of service.”

I have no issue with porn online. I just believe that for the sake of the Ning brand (or Scribd, who we also noted was running porn) it would be better to move the porn off of the main site and onto a porn-oriented social networking platform. It can utilize the same codebase as Ning does, but just call it something else where those who want to be sheltered from it, can. And I understand that Ning-based networks can be protected so only registered members can get in. I applaud Ning’s policies on content and moderator abilities within their network.

There are pros and cons to moving the porn off and to a separate domain. The largest con is that it hurts traffic to the main site. Less traffic means it’s harder to sell advertising for a premium rate.

The pro is that it would allow the social network to sell ads at a higher rate on the adult-oriented site. It would also guarantee that advertisers on the main site would never have their ads shown near content they might object to.

Lastly, this doesn’t just apply to Ning but to any social networking provider. Splitting the adult content from the main site just makes sense. Porn is a huge business and shouldn’t be banned on white-label social networking platforms. Just move it to a separate URL so it can be branded and marketed more effectively.