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The fallout from Tumblr’s porn ban

In late November, Apple removed Tumblr’s app from the App Store over the presence of child pornography. The result had an outsized impact on the blogging platform, which abruptly announced on Monday that it would ban all NSFW and adult-oriented content from the platform by December 17th.

The move was a huge shift for Tumblr’s audience, which had become accustomed to a permissive atmosphere of explicit art and photos since the platform was created. In fact, many began to express how they used Tumblr solely to view adult material and share experiences in sex positive spaces. They believe the adult content ban means the death of Tumblr.

  • Shannon Liao

    Dec 6, 2018

    Shannon Liao

    Tumblr’s adult content ban means the death of unique blogs that explore sexuality

    Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

    This week, Tumblr announced that it would ban all adult content from its platform and said any user who was hurt by the decision could simply migrate to another site. But creators and readers alike don’t believe there’s another website that fosters the same kind of sex-positive spaces that Tumblr has. It’s as though Tumblr CEO Jeff D’Onofrio has failed to understand his own platform, how unique these communities are to Tumblr, and how unlikely it is for them to survive beyond the shutdown.

    “Sex wasn’t this separate, shameful thing. Tumblr allowed it to exist right next to every other facet of our messy, millennial experience,” says Vex Ashley, who runs the blog Vextape that’s inspired by her work as a cam model and making DIY porn. “We shared it, discussed it, debated it, and curated it.” Porn, she says, was as appropriate on Tumblr as song lyrics.

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  • Shannon Liao

    Dec 3, 2018

    Shannon Liao

    Tumblr is already flagging innocent posts as porn

    Tumblr’s Year In Review 2014
    Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images for Tumblr

    Tumblr announced earlier today that it will ban all adult content on the platform, starting on December 17th. Now, longtime users are criticizing the company’s auto-detecting algorithms, which appear to be incorrectly flagging some inoffensive images as explicit.

    Tumblr is giving users until the start date of the ban later this month to appeal, but the inaccuracies are causing concern that blanket bans on such content could sweep up inoffensive posts and continue to drive a wedge between creators and the Tumblr platform. The algorithms were originally a part of Safe Mode, which is now being replaced with a full-site ban on adult content.

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  • Shannon Liao

    Dec 3, 2018

    Shannon Liao

    Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

    Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

    Tumblr will permanently ban adult content from its platform on December 17th in a move that will eradicate porn-related communities on the platform and fundamentally alter how the service is used. The ban includes explicit sexual content and nudity with a few exceptions, the company tells The Verge. The new policy’s announcement comes just days after Tumblr was removed from Apple’s iOS App Store over a child pornography incident, but it extends far beyond that matter alone. “Adult content will no longer be allowed here,” the company flatly stated in a blog post published on Monday.

    Banned content includes photos, videos, and GIFs of human genitalia, female-presenting nipples, and any media involving sex acts, including illustrations. The exceptions include nude classical statues and political protests that feature nudity. The new guidelines exclude text, so erotica remains permitted. Illustrations and art that feature nudity are still okay — so long as sex acts aren’t depicted — and so are breastfeeding and after-birth photos.

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  • Jon Porter

    Nov 20, 2018

    Jon Porter

    Tumblr was removed from Apple’s App Store over child pornography issues

    Tumblr-app-stock-Dec2015-verge-02

    Tumblr says that child pornography was the reason for its app’s sudden disappearance from the iOS App Store. The app has been missing from the store since November 16th, but until now the reason for its absence was unclear — initially Tumblr simply said it was “working to resolve the issue with the iOS app.” However, after Download.com approached Tumblr with sources claiming that the reason was related to the discovery of child pornography on the service, the Yahoo-owned social media network issued a new statement confirming the matter.

    In its updated statement, Tumblr said that while every image uploaded to the platform is “scanned against an industry database of child sexual abuse material” to filter out explicit images, a “routine audit” discovered content that was absent from the database, allowing it to slip through the filter. Although Tumblr says the content was immediately removed, its app continues to be unavailable on the App Store. It’s still available in the Google Play store for Android users, however.

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  • Nov 17, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    Tumblr is missing from Apple’s App Store

    Tumblr-app-stock-Dec2015-verge-02

    Tumblr’s iOS app is missing from Apple’s App Store. Tumblr says that it is “working to resolve an issue with the iOS app,” but it’s not clear if the app is missing from the store because it was removed by Apple, or by Tumblr itself.

    Earlier this week, users reported that there were issues with searching in the iOS app while Safe Mode was off. According to PiunikaWeb, Users who deleted the app in an attempt to reinstall it discovered that it was now missing from the App Store, although some users reported that they could re-download the app by going to their purchases page. As of this afternoon, Tumblr noted that it was “still working on the issue with the iOS app.”

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