Media Playback Comment Filtering for Friend-Only Viewing

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Solution Overview

Problem

Social networking systems face challenges in presenting media content items that are most interesting or relevant to a user while avoiding emotionally distressing comments from unknown individuals and ensuring timely responses from friends, which can negatively impact user experience.

Innovation Solution

The system generates media content playback with comments only from friends, allowing private messaging with comment creators, and implements a cool-down period for notifications, while displaying comments at respective temporal positions during playback.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of information

If the system presents all comments from all users on media content items, then the user can see complete discussion threads, but the user may experience emotional distress from comments by unknown individuals and the system complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecomment visibilityVSAvoidemotional distress
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of informationVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts and displays only comments from friends (connected users) while excluding comments from unknown individuals. This selective extraction resolves the contradiction by maintaining comment visibility for relevant users while eliminating potential emotional distress from unrelated users.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The comment feed is segmented into friend-specific sections during media playback, with each friend's comments displayed in separate chronological segments. This segmentation allows the system to maintain complete information from friends while managing the complexity of organizing multiple comment streams.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

2Productivity

If the system displays all comments from friends during media playback, then the user engagement increases, but the device complexity and processing requirements increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveuser engagementVSAvoidsystem complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system implements periodic action by displaying comments at specific temporal positions during media playback rather than continuously. Comments are shown at predetermined intervals or trigger points, which maintains user engagement while reducing the processing complexity of managing continuous comment streams.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #19Periodic action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent applies partial action by selecting and displaying only certain comments from friends based on relevance and timing, rather than showing all comments. This selective approach maintains high user engagement with meaningful content while reducing the computational complexity of processing and displaying every comment.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #16Partial or excessive action

3Loss of time

If the system provides immediate notifications for all comments, then the user responds timely, but the notification frequency becomes excessive and disturbs the user

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveresponse timeVSAvoidnotification frequency
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of timeVSObject-generated harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The notification system uses periodic action by implementing a cool-down period that limits the frequency of notifications. Instead of notifying immediately for every comment, the system provides notifications at controlled intervals, ensuring timely awareness while preventing excessive disturbance from frequent alerts.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #19Periodic action

4Object-affected harmful factors

If the system filters comments to show only from friends, then the emotional distress is reduced, but the loss of information from other users increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveemotional distressVSAvoidcomment information
Core Design Contradiction:
Object-affected harmful factorsVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies local quality by making the comment filtering specific to the user's context - showing comments from friends during personal media playback while maintaining the option to see broader content in other interfaces. This localized approach reduces emotional distress in personal viewing while preserving access to broader information when needed.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #3Local quality

Data Source

PatentEP4708809A2Media content playback and comments management
Publication Date: 2026.03.11 SNAP INC
  • EP4708809A2 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP4708809A2 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP4708809A2 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

A method and a system include receiving a request from a client device to view a media content item, determining at least one comment associated with a respective user profile from a set of connected profiles, generating a summary comments selectable item based at least in part on the respective user profile, causing a display of playback of the media content item and the summary comments selectable item in response to the request to view the media content item, and during the playback of the media content item at the particular time, causing a display of at least one comment.