Spoiler prevention

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11568009-B2
Application number	US-202016917239-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 30, 2020
Priority date	Jun 30, 2020
Publication date	Jan 31, 2023
Grant date	Jan 31, 2023

Abstract

Methods, systems and computer program products are provided for spoiler prevention. Media consumption applications may be placed in “spoiler-free” mode, for example, to prevent media content from spoiling first-hand user experience. A user may provide and/or authorize access to and use of spoiler prevention information. A user may request media content (e.g., while surfing the Internet). Digital media content to be presented to a user may be searched in real-time and/or pre-searched for spoiler content and/or associated spoiler indications relative to spoiler prevention information. Identified spoiler content may be concealed from users. A procedure may be provided for users to determine one or more reasons why content is concealed, to selectively reveal concealed content, and to provide feedback whether concealed content was or was not spoiler content for a user. Feedback may be used to improve spoiler prevention, for example, by retraining a machine learning model, which may be user-specific.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A spoiler prevention method implemented at least in part by a user-specific machine learning model, the spoiler prevention method comprising:
receiving spoiler prevention information;
receiving digital media content to be presented to a user;
identifying at least a portion of the digital media content as spoiler content based on the spoiler prevention information;
concealing the identified spoiler content in the digital media content to be presented to the user;
providing a procedure for the user to selectively reveal the concealed spoiler content;
responsive to the user selectively revealing the concealed spoiler content, requesting the user to provide user feedback to indicate whether the revealed spoiler content was or was not a spoiler for the user;
receiving the user feedback from the user; and
updating the user-specific machine learning model based on the user feedback.

2. The spoiler prevention method of claim 1 , further comprising:
performing at least one of the following:
searching the digital media content for spoiler content based on the spoiler prevention information; and
identifying at least one spoiler content indicator associated with the digital media content and comparing the spoiler content indicator to the spoiler prevention information.

3. The spoiler prevention method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the spoiler prevention information comprises at least one of extracting user interests specified for a Web browser and accessing a user's media content watch list.

4. The spoiler prevention method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the digital media content comprises downloading content from the world wide web (WWW) using a Web browser.

5. The spoiler prevention method of claim 1 , wherein the concealing comprises at least one of blocking, removing, not displaying, covering, binning, and not downloading.

6. The spoiler prevention method of claim 1 , wherein identifying at least a portion of the digital media content as spoiler content comprises:
identifying episodes watched by a user for a series or other portion of related digital media content of interest to a user; and
identifying the at least a portion of the digital media content as pertaining to information about an episode of the series or other portion of related digital media content of interest to the user that the user has not yet watched.

7. The spoiler prevention method of claim 1 , wherein:
said providing a procedure for the user to selectively reveal the concealed spoiler content comprises:
detecting user interest in the concealed spoiler content;
presenting an option to reveal the concealed spoiler content;
receiving a selection responsive to the presented option; and
responding to the selection by revealing the concealed spoiler content or continuing to conceal the concealed spoiler content.

8. The spoiler prevention method of claim 7 , wherein presenting the option to reveal the concealed spoiler content comprises presenting a message indicating a reason for identifying at least a portion of the digital media content as spoiler content.

9. The spoiler prevention method of claim 1 , further comprising:
presenting an option to selectively enable and disable the method; and
presenting an option to provide access to a user's non-public information to determine spoiler prevention information.

10. A spoiler prevention system, comprising
one or more processors; and
one or more memory devices that store spoiler prevent program code configured to be executed by the one or more processors to perform a spoiler prevention method, the spoiler prevention method being implemented at least in part by a user-specific machine learning model, the spoiler prevention method comprising:
receiving spoiler prevention information pertaining to ae user;
receiving digital media content for presentation to the one user;
identifying at least a portion of the digital media content as spoiler content based on the spoiler prevention information;
concealing the identified spoiler content in the digital media content displayed to the user;
providing a procedure for the user to selectively reveal the concealed spoiler content;
responsive to the user selectively revealing the concealed spoiler content, requesting the user to provide user feedback to indicate Whether the revealed spoiler content was or was not a spoiler for the user;
receiving the user feedback from the user; and
updating the user-specific machine learning model base on the user feedback.

11. The spoiler prevention system of claim 10 , wherein the spoiler prevention method further comprises:
crawling webpages on the world wide web (WWW);
searching the crawled webpages content for potential spoiler content for a plurality of users;
identifying a plurality of potential spoiler content; and
associating the identified potential spoiler content with spoiler content indicators;
wherein identifying at least a portion of the digital media content as spoiler content comprises matching a spoiler content indicator associated with the digital media content to the spoiler prevention information.

12. The spoiler prevention system of claim 10 , wherein the spoiler prevention method further comprises:
caching spoiler content identified for a plurality of requests from a plurality of users for, digital media content, wherein the cached spoiler content includes the spoiler content; and
searching the cached spoiler content in response to requests for digital media content;
wherein identifying at least a portion of the digital media content as spoiler content comprises matching the cached spoiler content to the spoiler prevention information.

13. The spoiler prevention system of claim 10 , wherein:
said concealing the identified spoiler content comprises:
marking up code representing the digital media content to provide an option for a user to selectively reveal the concealed spoiler content.

14. A computer-readable storage medium having program instructions recorded thereon that, when executed by a processing circuit, perform a method implemented at least in part by a user-specific machine learning model, the method comprising:
receiving spoiler prevention information pertaining to a user;
receiving digital media content to be presented to the user;
searching the digital media content for spoiler content based on the spoiler prevention information;
identifying at least a portion of the digital media content as spoiler content based on the spoiler prevention information;
concealing the identified spoiler content in the digital media content to be presented to the at least one user;
providing a providing a procedure for the user to selectively reveal the concealed spoiler content;
responsive to the user selectively revealing the concealed spoiler content, requesting the user to provide user feedback to indicate whether the revealed spoiler content was or was not a spoiler for the user;
receiving the user feedback from the user; and
updating the user-specific machine learning model based on the user feedback.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 , Wherein:
said providing a procedure for the user to selectively reveal the concealed spoiler content comprises:
detecting user interest in the concealed spoiler content;
presenting an option to reveal the concealed spoiler content;
receiving a selection responsive to the presented option; and
responding to the selection by revealing the concealed spoiler content or continuing to conceal the concealed spoiler content.

16. The computer-rea

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Ebersol Geoffrey T
• West Jeff
• Kelly Benjamin D
• Butcher Aaron M
• Andrew Felix G T I

Classifications

• G06F16/951

  Indexing; Web crawling techniques · CPC title

• G06F16/9538

  Presentation of query results · CPC title

• G06N20/00

  Machine learning · CPC title

• G06F16/483

  using metadata automatically derived from the content · CPC title

• G06F16/9535 Primary

  Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation · CPC title