Ask HN: Legality of using M Turk to filter content

It's almost certainly not illegal so long as your TOS is worded right. The only time I could think of it being illegal is if your TOS promised never to provide the pictures to anyone besides their friends. But that's unreasonable anyway because you need some kind of admins.

Now, it's still tricky, because if the solution allows anyone to go to a link you post on m-turk and see users' content, users will get very mad. So you need a secure interface that only lets them see the specific pictures. But it could still get problematic.

Better might be attempting to hire a person or a few people for very cheap (possibly overseas). The would work some real amount of time for you, and they'd have to sign all kinds of things saying they won't do anything with the content. Then no one could get mad because theyr'e an employee, not anyone with an m-turk account.