1. A method for identifying content items that violate a content policy of a digital content system, the method comprising: receiving a request from a user for content items to the digital content system; identifying, by the digital content system in response to receiving the request, a content item based on interests of the user maintained by the digital content system, the content item comprising at least one digital image; extracting image signals from the digital image of the content item; analyzing the extracted image signals at the digital content system by: classifying pixels representing the digital image as skin pixels or non-skin pixels based on the extracted image signals, determining a total number of skin pixels in the digital image, identifying connected regions including skin pixels in the digital image from the classifying, and determining a number of skin pixels in each of the identified connected regions; determining whether the content item is suspicious of containing unsafe or illegal content based on the analysis of the extracted image signals by comparing a number of identified connected regions including skin pixels to a threshold and comparing the number of skin pixels in each of the identified connected regions to an additional threshold; responsive to a determination that the content item is suspicious of containing unsafe or illegal content, sending a bit string representation of the content item to a verification service external to the digital content system; responsive to receiving, at the digital content system, a verification that the content item contains unsafe or illegal content from the verification service external to the digital content system, taking an action by the digital content system, wherein the action comprises shutting down user accounts maintained by the digital content system and associated with distribution of the content item; and responsive to receiving, at the digital content system, an indication that the content item does not contain unsafe or illegal content from the verification service external to the digital content system, generating a page of a digital magazine including the content item and providing the generated page of the digital magazine to a client device associated with the user for display, the client device configured to allow the user to interact with the content item.