The Adult Content Filter

You may work in an office or location, where … questionable … imagery on your screen might raise eyebrows or get questions asked.  The answer to this problem, at iStockphoto.com lies in your Control Panel – the Adult Content Filter.

As far as I understand it, when imagery is being inspected, the inspector can check off a box that marks the image as “adult content”.  While iStockphoto is very tame when it comes to the level of explicitness it allows in content, it does allow various levels of nudity depending on context.  The adult content filter tends to disallow anything from showing up that you would expect to get mostly covered by a small bathing suit, ie., no female nipples, genetalia, etc.

To be very obvious, a search for “naked female” with the filter on, returns 10488 images as of the writing of this.  With the filter off, 16251 images appear.

You can look under “Advanced Search” link in the page upper right, to enable/disable the content filter, but all you’ll find there is whether the filter is on or off, and a link to open up your Control Panel, which is where the checkbox lives.

I suggest checking (or unchecking) the box, and then clicking on the iStock logo home page link in the upper left of the page.  This seems to “cement” the choice.  You can open up the Advanced Search now and see if your choice took.  If you still end up getting the same search results back, check/uncheck the box again and then visit the home page.  It’s one of those funky UI things you have to fiddle with a bit, but since you usually end up with a setting and leave it there, it isn’t too big a hassle.

This knowledge can help you surf for stock imagery without getting in trouble at work.  Useful knowledge!