In a way, Amazon Prime Video works a lot like Amazon’s marketplace, where the company has struggled with
guidelines and enforcement of what is acceptable for it to carry or not. The video streaming service also suffers from a similar set of struggles that crop up when users are given free rein over what will appear on the platform. When users stand to make money by selling random stuff or simply uploading random videos, some bad stuff is bound to appear.
Amazon’s strange user-uploaded content ultimately points to an even larger challenge of content moderation. Platforms have to strike a balance between getting the benefits of free user-uploaded content with the fact that a lot of that content might not fit their standards — and those platforms might not be willing or able to invest in the tools to vet that content. As we know, nothing on the internet is ever free. Apparently, it’s also seldom normal.