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Google Developing Plan to Help Fans Avoid Spoilers on Social Media
by Ethan Anderton
April 8, 2015
Source: Quartz
If there's one thing that can work many consumers of pop culture into a quick rage, it's spoilers. Fans just don't like having details of certain movies, books and TV shows spoiled before they have a chance to see for themselves, and in the age of social media, it's becoming harder than ever. However, Quartz (via Vulture) reports that a new patent was award to Google today that shows the search engine giant is working on a system that will allow fans to block out posts pertaining to certain TV shows, books and movies so your friends and content providers on social media can't spoil them for you. But how would that work? Read on!
The patent describes a system that would have users track their progress in a book, movie or TV series on a social network, and Google would then use the same information provided by another user to pinpoint whether or not a social media post would spoil something you hadn't yet seen for yourself. If the system thinks that a certain post contains a spoiler, it will blur out the content, give a warning message that it might contain a spoiler, and allow users to choose if they want to read it or not. And if you're feeling generous yourself, you could also tag your own post to warn others that it contains spoilers.
The good news is that there doesn't need to be an argument about what is considered a spoiler (fans have their own ideas of what they don't want spoiled in their entertainment), and they can choose which potentially spoilery posts they want to read. However, it remains to be seen how easy this will be to integrate into sites like Facebook or Twitter, which Google doesn't own, because having this in place on Google+ will save nobody from spoilers, because no one uses that dying social network. But still, if this idea comes to fruition, you can bet it would be popular among consumers of social media and pop culture. Sound good?
4 Comments
1
Perhaps people should just reduce their social media/blog usage....aaw...who am I kidding? I'm a total social media junkie... I need help....
TheOct8pus on Apr 8, 2015
2
Good luck Google.
DAVIDPD on Apr 8, 2015
3
I don't watch television (stream netflix) and I avoid articles involving the few shows I'm into. Can be hard at times, but my main problem is my damn coworkers. Let's go Google, help me out with that.
grimjob on Apr 8, 2015
4
It's not Google's choice to do anything. If you don't like spoilers get off the internet.
Jason Scarpelli on Apr 8, 2015
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