How one of the largest porn sites filters banned videos

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What stays online is also decided on xHamster by volunteer fire fighters (symbol image)

Photo: Federico Gambarini / DPA

All major porn platforms have one problem: anonymous users repeatedly upload content that shows sexual violence and its victims.

In order to prevent the distribution of such recordings, numerous permanent and voluntary employees work for the porn platform xHamster, which is particularly popular in Germany.

This comes from a report in the online magazine "Vice".

Apparently more than 100 unpaid volunteers in the so-called Reviewers Club decide whether uploaded images violate the rules of the platforms.

But according to the "Vice" report, the rules are only around 2800 characters long.

This corresponds roughly to the text length of a DIN A4 page.

In addition, exemplary images can be seen in the internal manual.

The members of the "Reviewers Club", to which the journalists obtained undercover access for their research, have to decide, among other things, whether minors are to be seen or whether sexual acts are carried out against the will of those involved.

The reviewers also have to decide whether they are secretly filmed spanner recordings, such as so-called upskirting videos.

Age estimate by volunteers

Especially when it comes to determining the age of the people depicted, there would be uncertainties among the fire-fighting workers, according to the "Vice" report.

Among other things, the manual contains rather vague recommendations, such as paying attention to details such as tattoos, piercings or stretch marks.

It also says: "Do not delete any content unless you are 100 percent sure that it is illegal here".

When asked by SPIEGEL, xHamsters vice-boss, Alex Hawkins, said that the members of the "Reviewers Club" only view pictures and not videos and referred to the permanent employees.

These are in use around the clock, 365 days a year.

How many paid employees are working on filtering prohibited content and other details about the controls, however, left xHamster open.

They do not want to give potential criminals any insight into internal procedures.

xHamster is one of the world's largest porn platforms.

According to the analysis service Similarweb, the site has around 120 million hits a month, most of them from Germany.

Partly dubious motives of the volunteer fire extinguishers

According to the "Vice" research, it could be problematic that it is relatively easy to volunteer for xHamster as a fire extinguisher.

The only requirement for admission to the Reviewers Club is that you have a 200-day old xHamster profile and publish your own content.

You don't have to reveal your name.

The motives of the voluntary fire extinguishers are apparently partly doubtful.

The chat log with another fire extinguisher should show that the latter is expecting "privileges" from membership, ie access to the material that violates the guidelines of the platform.

In response to a request from SPIEGEL, xHamster stated that new members would also be checked by its own employees before they were accepted into the "Reviewers Club".

Despite the massive size of xHamster, the platform in Germany does not fall under the Network Enforcement Act.

Among other things, this provides for high fines if platforms do not delete content even though it has been reported by users.

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