So, Tumblr, right?
Listen, the social media platform has been in a downward spiral for awhile and nobody has ever been 100% happy with the site, but this is a new low. In case you didn’t see or you’re just not paying attention, starting on December 17th the microblogging platform, Tumblr, will be banning all adult content. According to Tumblr’s Help Center, they define adult content 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,” among other things. Admittedly, they do make some concessions in that breastfeeding photos, nudity found in art, nudity related to political speech, and written erotica will supposedly be allowed. Before we get into why this is potentially problematic, let’s start with where this all began.
Pornbots, child porn, and pedophiles. That’s usually where people, especially Tumblr users, agree this all started. The social media platform recently has been having issues with pornbots, which are spammer programs disguised as real accounts that feature, you guessed it, pornography and links to adult websites. In addition to the overabundance of pornbots, the Tumblr app was also removed from the Apple App Store for hosting “material related to child sexual abuse on its website.” For the Tumblr community, this is not new. Users have been urging the staff of the website (@staff) to crack down on child pornography, pedophiles, Nazis, and more over the last couple of years. However, it wasn’t until the app was removed by Apple that Tumblr actually attempted to do something.
Key word: attempted.
The platform is supposedly attempting to enforce these new rules through a combination of automated detection, human moderation, and community member-driven flagging of questionable posts. And that would be all well and good if the algorithm Tumblr used for adult content actually functioned like it’s supposed to. Already there have been hundreds of thousands of instances of innocent posts to the Tumblr website being flagged for adult content that isn’t there. Check out some of the examples I include to see the absurdity. It is nothing less than frustrating and Tumblr users are angry and not afraid to express it. Already, former Tumblr users are flocking to other platforms, notably Twitter and a new platform called Pillowfort.
Normally I wouldn’t consider this that big of a deal. However, I do have some serious concerns. The website is known for its hosting of multiple—and sometimes very extensive—fan communities, or fandoms, for different TV shows, movies, book series, and more. Fan communities have witnessed content purges like this before (anyone remember LiveJournal?) and could move to a new platform, but should they have to? Tumblr has stated that this adult content ban is meant to make people “feel comfortable expressing themselves” and “focus…on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.” Is this not alienating a rather large part of your community, Tumblr? Should you not, you know, focus on the actual problem (i.e. pornbots, child pornography blogs, etc.) instead of targeting your entire pool of users?
I don’t know what the answer here is. I don’t know how easy it is to fix an adult content mediating algorithm. But I do know that until Tumblr either gets its act together or straight-up implodes, a bunch of other social media platforms are about to get a lot busier.
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Sources
the treachery of text [this is not a blog] 
Wow, I don’t have a Tumblr account but people have told me about what is on there. I understand what they are trying to do but if they don’t fix their system then everyone is going to get tired of being flagged all the time. I’ve always thought of Tumblr as one of the weirder social media websites and now that thought is confirmed.
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My involvement with Tumblr is very minimal. In fact, I only ever see funny screenshots of Tumblr posts. So I’ve always thought of the website as a funny place. So this is a huge shock to me! But clearly, you can’t have “pornbots” taking over your website. Obviously there will be kinks along the path of correction, but hopefully they get things figured out and the website can return to its old ways!
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