50 Cent Says His Twitter Account is for Adults Only but Is That Possible?

Rapper 50 Cent’s Twitpic account was disabled over the weekend after he posted a series of sexually graphic images using his Twitter account. Uploading the images, including one rather strange one of a woman with a hamburger wedged between her buttocks, were deemed to be an inappropriate use Twitpic, a free website designed to allow users to easily link to images from their Twitter accounts.

50 Cent, the 35-year-old rap mogul more formally known as Curtis Jackson, has a net worth close to half a billion dollars. He recently took control of his Twitter account from his record label. Jackson, who currently has over 3 million followers, responded to being banned from Twitpic by posting an expletive-laden rant to his Twitter account:

“Man they took my Twitpic down I told them mother****ers put it back. I run Twitter ***** don't touchin my s**t,” he continued. “This ain’t Twitter, this the corner *****. And you shouldn't even be out this mother****er you look like you police. You a pig *****.”

Jackson later apologized for all of his swearing with another tweet in which he told children to stay away from his Twitter account:

“Look man I'm sorry I've been cursing. But f**k that s**t I gotta express myself b***h,” he wrote. “Look this is a public service announcement my tweets are for mother****ers 18 and older. If you under 18 get yo little ass off the computer.”

Jackson may be onto something here, although his rhetoric may not be the most effective. Would it be possible to have certain Twitter accounts viewable only to those 18 and over? It is impossible to say how many of Jackson’s followers are under 18, but there are data available on US Twitter users as a whole.  Eighteen percent of users are under the age of 18, according data published in April by Quantcast.com.

In truth, it would be difficult to keep nearly one-fifth of Twitter users from certain Twitter accounts. Parents and schools could use the same content filters they use to keep out pornographic materials to filter adults-only Twitter accounts. Twitter could also require users to certify that they are over 18 to follow certain accounts and restrict that content of those accounts to those who certify they are 18 and over.

There is no indication that Twitter is interested in creating an adults-only section of its service, though. The micro-blogging site does not censor the content of users tweets, although a de facto censorship occurs through the use of web applications that send content to Twitter. These applications, including Twitpic, often have terms of use that restrict that types of media that can be uploaded using their services and prohibit the uploading of adult content to their servers.

Jackson may yet win an award for the most curse words ever condensed into a single tweet, but that probably won’t get his account back. Twitpic, which is owned independently of Twitter by Noah Everett, has a terms of use agreement that states clearly that it can do just about whatever it pleases with your account:

TwitPic reserves the right to remove any image for any reason whatsoever. Specifically, any image uploaded that is pornographic or offensive in nature (including nudity, violence, sexual acts, or sexually provocative images.)… Violating these terms will result result in termination of your ability to upload further images.

We reserve the right to ban any individual uploader or website domain from using our services for any reason.

It seems pretty cut and dry for 50 Cent. This isn’t “the streets.” This is Twitpic, and they will do whatever they ******* please with his pictures.

Andrew Bluebond is a staff writer for Campus Progress. He attends Claremont McKenna College.