Pornography is banned in China. But the censorship is difficult. Chinese researchers are therefore developing a kind of helmet to help so-called porn experts to block erotic content.
China is arguably one of the leading countries when it comes to technology for censoring unwanted content on the Internet. Erotic content also belongs in this category in the Middle Kingdom. In order to effectively keep all filthy stuff away from the population, China not only relies on automatic recognition of explicit content, but also on manual control.
However, because this is a tiring and strenuous task for the mostly female censors – known as Jian Huang Shi – a kind of mind-reading helmet should make decisions easier for them in the future, reports the “South China Morning Post”.
Half a second is enough to filter eroticism
The concept that researchers at Jiaotong University in Beijing are working on is as follows: During their work, the experts put on a helmet that recognizes brain activities that occur primarily when consuming pornographic or suggestive content – within half a second .
During the shift, countless images flash past the employees’ eyes and the helmet monitors their reactions. If the “anti-porn cap” detects these signals in the brain, the displayed content is marked for deletion. The research team explains that the helmet is able to filter out stray thoughts or inappropriate emotions to only pay attention to the “erotic alarm”.
In addition, the censorship tool should be able to adapt to different people, i.e. it should be able to learn the peculiarities of individual brains and thus be universally applicable to staff without making mistakes due to other thought patterns.
Study deficient – only men reported for the test
However, the helmet still has to prove itself in practice – because the first tests apparently took place under unrealistic conditions. The university carried out the studies with 15 male students who, because of the absolute and unavoidable ban on pornography, were only allowed to see censored images, it is said.
For this reason, the researchers of the cap confirm an 80 percent accuracy, but put the missing 20 percent into perspective due to the inadequate training material. So it’s possible that the horror helmet is even more effective in real use.
Man as sensor
In China, measuring brain waves to collect data is not a new phenomenon. Four years ago, the magazine “Interesting Engineering” reported on sensors that monitor workers’ emotions and report moods that endanger productivity to supervisors. All in the name of safety at work, of course.
But the anti-porn helmet actually goes a step further, because it’s not used to monitor people, it’s used as a tool instead. It looks like the cap ultimately makes the decision on whether or not to ban a piece of content. The person wearing them is only needed as a sensor to report signals to the helmet.
Quelle: South China Morning Post, Interesting Engineering
