Mobile Service Recognises Inappropriate Download

An instructional video demonstrating how to ‘Make the Perfect Joint’ has been removed after thousands of UK teenagers downloaded the tutorial to their mobile phones. Tocmag (tocmag.com) – the free user-generated mobile content service – moved quickly to delete the offending mobile magazine after a Bristol secondary school teacher alerted them to the problem.

The Tocmag was live for three days and generated over 5000 downloads to UK mobiles, mostly thought to be school children. Tocmags are automatically stored on mobile phone memories so it is impossible to know how many times it has been viewed.

The Tocmag video, entitled ‘smoke-weed’ by its anonymous author, was accompanied by a six-page ‘mini-magazine’ listing the ‘top ten activities to try when you’re caned.’

As anyone can create and upload content onto mobiles free of charge, Tocmag employ a team of human censors to filter-out inappropriate material. However, given the surge in the service’s popularity since its launch a little over one month ago (more than one million Tocmags have been downloaded in the UK already), some publications have inevitably slipped through the safety net.

‘We unreservedly apologise for this oversight and we’re doing everything in our powers to ensure it doesn’t happen again,’ said Tocmag founder Brad Ells. ‘From the outset of this project, we realised illicit content is a serious problem with user-generated material. We have conducted a review of our censorship process and ramped-up the resources we devote to ensuring Tocmag is a clean service.’