Tumblr has announced that its liberal attitude to what content is shared will be curtailed. From 17 December 2018, adult content – defined as “photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content—including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations—that depicts sex acts” will be banned from the site with exisiting content to be reverted to a private setting that makes it viewable only by the poster and not the rest of the world.
Anyone with content posted that Tumblr flags as adult content will receive a notice letting them know. If you think something of yours has been unfairly flagged there will be a button on the post that will launch you into an appeal process. That button will only work via the web or the Tumblr Android app version 12.2.
Tumblr’s announcement regarding this change seems to cover all the bases with advice for owners of blogs that had been tagged as explicit and some comments about nudity in art, breast-feeding and other non-sexual depictions of nudity.
Tumblr is one of the last holdouts amongst the main social media platforms where the sharing of pornography remained OK. But it seems community standards have either changed or caught up with Tumblr. And I suspect the platform’s new owner Oath Inc, who purchased it from Yahoo! last year, is looking at how to increase its value. Oath Inc is actually a division of the phone company Verizon which may explain the more conservative approach to content it is now pushing.
Of course, it’s not like there aren’t lots of other places to go for those seeking online pornography. But I’m sure there are lots of people who will be disappointed or annoyed at this change.
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