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Tumblr shoots itself in the foot,.
7 years ago
Tumblr announced that as of December 17th, they will no longer allow NSFW content. This is a shame, Though I never posted NSFW content (or much of any content at all), I did peruse it, and harvested it. I generally use Tumblr to collect reference images. But it does/did have one of the finest collections of well photographed and curated porn on the web. It has been noted, the Tumblr had only about 1% of it's users producing porn, but 20% reblogged those submissions, and probably about 1/3 of the users were there for the porn. It was one of the few apps you could get on an iPhone that you could get porn. So Tumblr was a useful resource for me. (porn is great anatomy reference too!) Sometime around thanksgiving, Apple removed the Tumblr App from the app store. This was on the grounds that some pornbots had uploaded child porn past the filters, and it got reported (which is good and proper). Then Tumblr announced that on December 17th they will remove NSFW content from public view. Before that, though, they implemented their algorithms, which apparently don't work well. I've kind of avoided it for a few days.
There is two things going on. 1.) Societally, the mainstream will not allow "normalizing of Pedophilia". It cannot and will not become an accepted part of the sexual spectrum. People would vote for the death penalty for Pedophiles if it is offered, as it's a direct threat to people's offspring. As such any accusation of kiddie Porn is radioactive, and finding kiddie porn is an indicator that a platform is inadequately monitored. 2.) Politically, It can be seen as progressive to ban NSFW content as exploitative, in the #me too era. This burnishes Tumblr's Socio-political credit. 3.) Quickest/Laziest solution possible is to use an algorithm to scrub the site. They don't want to hire more humans, and getting hit with a wave of Pornbots has guided them into an equally machine-like response. as CP would drop their value to the parent company Verizon.
However this may not be main reason, I found out what this is "REALLY" all about. Apparently after the Verizon Acquisition of Yahoo, Verizon wanted to put Advertising on Tumblr. but they could not run Ads alongside Porn. So it was decided to phase out NSFW content, somewhat like Imgur has done. The content that had Tumblr removed from the Apple Store, just gave a panicked acceleration to this initiative. So now we know, that porn is an anathema to online ads, and all the media corporations want to be like Google, and derive income from ad space. If the porn removal doesn't cause the exodus, the intrusive lifestyle ads embedded in posts will.
I am half tempted to post porn on my Tumblr account just as a middle finger to this, but I use my Tumbler mostly for image harvesting. Lotta nice animal and landscape photos there.
There is two things going on. 1.) Societally, the mainstream will not allow "normalizing of Pedophilia". It cannot and will not become an accepted part of the sexual spectrum. People would vote for the death penalty for Pedophiles if it is offered, as it's a direct threat to people's offspring. As such any accusation of kiddie Porn is radioactive, and finding kiddie porn is an indicator that a platform is inadequately monitored. 2.) Politically, It can be seen as progressive to ban NSFW content as exploitative, in the #me too era. This burnishes Tumblr's Socio-political credit. 3.) Quickest/Laziest solution possible is to use an algorithm to scrub the site. They don't want to hire more humans, and getting hit with a wave of Pornbots has guided them into an equally machine-like response. as CP would drop their value to the parent company Verizon.
However this may not be main reason, I found out what this is "REALLY" all about. Apparently after the Verizon Acquisition of Yahoo, Verizon wanted to put Advertising on Tumblr. but they could not run Ads alongside Porn. So it was decided to phase out NSFW content, somewhat like Imgur has done. The content that had Tumblr removed from the Apple Store, just gave a panicked acceleration to this initiative. So now we know, that porn is an anathema to online ads, and all the media corporations want to be like Google, and derive income from ad space. If the porn removal doesn't cause the exodus, the intrusive lifestyle ads embedded in posts will.
I am half tempted to post porn on my Tumblr account just as a middle finger to this, but I use my Tumbler mostly for image harvesting. Lotta nice animal and landscape photos there.
Still there are a number of good photographers there, so I will probably continue to harvest reference images until the advertising drives me off.
(I don't use Tumblr for porn, but I can see how attempts to filter content usually go. stuff that shouldn't get flagged is removed meanwhile the people who really want to get it past the radar manage to do so anyway)
There are a number of sites that seem to be doing face-plants, lately. Tumblr's tumble, of course, but Flickr is also shooting itself in the foot. After years of enticing aspiring photographers to upload thousands of photographs via free accounts, they recently decided that more than 1,000 pictures is grounds for a 'Pro' account -- at $50 a year. Failure to pay up means they will burn your pictures while you watch, from oldest to newest, until you have 1,000 or less. All of this while the site stumbles and bungles, hangs and keeps returning you to a cute picture of a little girl and her misbehaving toy panda. It's getting old.
Not to be outdone, in the Furry corner of the world, Weasyl has decided to selectively but strenuously enforce obscure portions of their Community Guidelines. A friend, who is older and somewhat incapacitated has taken to photographing assemblages of his toys. Apparently this tweaked someone's faucet, to the point that they sent him a warning and a 3-day suspension. I wrote a most brief Journal about (and posted a copy here on FA) and Weasyl's Site Director took it upon himself to personally lecture me at length about it -- while repeatedly contradicting himself.
It's weird out there -- don't forget your rubbers.
...aaand nuts. I like Weasyl as it's the one of the last "anything goes" art sites, But your story is a sign that may be changing...
*I* have a higher moral authority than *YOU*, so I am going to make you adhere to my moral authority...
this will bring tumblr falling down in ruins rather quickly (the internet, after all, is for Porn) and it will very, very swiftly be replaced by some other copycat.
pictures of sandy desert landscapes have been flagged as inapropriate for example
pictures of people's elbows - entirely nonsexual pictures - have been flagged
...and at least one fetish artist who got most her art flagged (rightly so) just appealed the lot and got EVERYTHING UNFLAGGED!
So tumblr's system clearly does not work in any way here
and they wonder why people implement adblockers on the internet. it all started with Geocities; onbe day long ago I wanted to follow a link to a site with stolen content, and all I got was one ad popping up after another, without seeing a glimpse of said linked site.
I understand that advertising is important, but it can backfire greatly in many ways.