What is Selective Content Filtering

The term is used for applying the content filtering selectively on some of the contents within a web page, without having to block the page completely. The term "selective" refers to the selection of objectionable content, which may be defined by the configuration of the user, but usually includes any content that falls into one of the following category: sexually explicit, violence, hate speech etc...

How Is It Different Than Regular Content Filtering

Traditional Content Filtering or Web Page Filtering applications have limited understanding in terms of different parts of a website. Because these systems operate on page level, any content that is deemed objectionable leads to blocking the whole page. However, today's websites and platforms, especially Online Social Networks provide all type of contents on their main webpage, with multiple contents as a feed. These are usually called Wall, or Feed. Examples are Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and all other similar sites.

These platforms have all the contents on their main page: i.e www.facebook.com or www.twitter.com and there is usually no subpages in this context. So, it's extremely hard to make a decision for these platforms and traditional systems usually categorise these platforms under different categories and let the end user chose if they would like to access them or not. However, that method is crippled, because any type of content can be feeded by these platforms. Video streaming services like Youtube may suggest videos that include violent or sexually explicit contents, and it's not enough to classify these contents as Social Network or Streaming Service. For these type of domains, a smarter approach is needed instead of blocking or allowing all the content on a website. Each content need to be analyzed, and based on the user's preference, objectionable contents need to be blocked and others allowed.

What are the application areas?

Selective Content Filtering application areas include all Content Filtering domain plus some additional domains what traditional systems cannot be implemented.

What's The Benefit?

The end user is a natural beneficiary of this new technology, because the content that is objectionable is filtered, but the harmless content is still accessible. For example, a family using a parental control application that has Selective Content Filtering capability does not need to inform their children about any filtering application, and the end users (children) will not even notice that a filtering application is being used because they will be able to access any domain, and any harmless content, but harmful content will be silently filtered.

The platform owners benefits also from this new technology, as their websites are not completely blocked, and users still can use their systems but have now confidence that objectionable content is not served by the platform.