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Tumblr like any website with image content is liable to have illigal images on it. Apple removing it, but not removing imgur, reddit, or any other site as an ap

• dijit 8y ago
  >imgur, reddit, or any other site as an app Except for the fact that both reddit and imgur have quite heavy handed moderation in place. Mature content (even when marked) is often removed from imgur. Reddit will ban entire subreddits if NSFW content goes anywhere near legal questions.
  • devwastaken 8y ago
    That's largely false. Imgur has tons of porn on it, you typically just don't see it on the front page. Imgur is the place to host albums of porn in a convenient way. Tumblr wasn't allowing the cp. As the article says it was immedietely deleted. In what way is this different to reddit or imgur? I doubt either have better image recognition, if any at all.
    • themagician 8y ago
      The iOS Imgur app hides all the porn though. You can’t search for it on the iOS app either. The Tumblr app, on the other hand, was HOW you would view porn. If you tried to go a NSFW Tumblr in Safari it would ask you to log in, and then bounce you into the app.
      • devwastaken 8y ago
        The removal from the app store is supposedly over cp, not it's accessibility to nsfw. Imgur does not magically block porn, because it doesn't know what images are or aren't. Reddit relies upon NSFW tags, and afaik can still be enabled through website settings. On the topic of pornography access, Apple is incredibly immature about it. They have a fetish of trying to remove pornography access, which should be unacceptable.
      • bgarbiak 8y ago
        That must have changed recently, no? Because a few years ago all the "dangerous" search terms where blanked in the Tumblr app. Not even a straight porn, I was looking for photos of some top models and if there was any kind of topless photo in the portfolio of such model (like Pirelli calendar session, for example) - sorry, no luck, had to go to the browser.
        • alphabettsy 8y ago
          That hasn’t been my experience. You can search for whatever you like.
• dumbfounder 8y ago
  Not to mention there are actual browser applications in the App store, such as Opera. Not to mention Safari itself. Are they saying there are filters in place in those apps for every single website on the internet? Do they do image analysis on every single image ever downloaded? That said, the way this works is if people report Tumblr they will ban them. So, it is either luck of the draw, or the problem is worse on Tumblr. And that said as well, there has been plenty of child porn on Twitter over the years. (Unfortunately I have run into this firsthand because I run Twicsy, a Twitter picture search engine that has indexed nearly 8 billion Twitter pictures)
  • existencebox 8y ago
    Sorry to tangent into the tech side of your post; but do you mind talking about what you use to do the filtering? I'm in a similar space, scraping content for textual analysis alongside the images, but certainly run into the same problem. That being said, 8 billion images is a whole other level of scale to what I've touched thus far, and I'm curious how you've approached this problem, because that's CERTAINLY beyond a manual threshold.
    • dumbfounder 8y ago
      If I encounter truly objectionable content I remove a network of users and all of their content with a single click. It sometimes removes users that are innocent, but better to be safe than sorry. I also have a form on the site where you can report content, so I get help from visitors to identify the bad stuff. (Twicsy at its height had over 9 million visitors per month)
  • rootusrootus 8y ago
    I know you were being a bit hyperbolic, but that is actually an interesting point. I wonder how long it will be before web browsers start real-time fingerprinting images that are downloaded and checking against the database. It seems like an inevitable progression.
    • pbhjpbhj 8y ago
• nindalf 8y ago
  All the big software companies share databases and code that helps identify CP. I would be surprised if Tumblr wasn't using these resources, just as I would be surprised if reddit or imgur weren't. These resources make it relatively easy to do the bare minimum required here.
  • rootusrootus 8y ago
    Didn't Tumblr say, though, that they did use those resources but the content in question wasn't in the image fingerprint database?
  • sotojuan 8y ago
    With Tumblr specifically it's user-generated content that's the problem. In high school, there were people who posted racy pics on there all the time.
• jonknee 8y ago
  This sort of action is very infrequent and I'd be shocked if there wasn't solid reasoning behind it. Tumblr has been passed around several times and is currently ultimately owned by Verizon. I wouldn't be surprised if Verizon is essentially ignoring Tumblr and they have ignored a child porn problem that is much worse than that on imgur, reddit, twitter, etc.
  • FooHentai 8y ago
    This, Tumblr simply doesn't do enough to guard against the problem. The simple steps they could take that would have avoided this are: - Clearly word their TOS/AUP to forbid any depictions of minors in a sexual context. They are a private organization, it is well within their rights to exclude any content regardless of whether some might have fringe legal status. - Assign even one single moderator to pro-actively hunt down obvious keywords, blogs, and content. - Have an easy 'report post' and 'report blog' functionality. Ban false reporters accounts.
• ProAm 8y ago
  > There should be grounds for suing apple in mistreating the market in this manner It's a private curated app store, they can do whatever they want with it.
  • devwastaken 8y ago
    I would bet there are civil precedents that give some powers, but not that they'd have an app at all if they won or lost. We're coming upon a time where some private markets have too wide of effects to not be actionable.
    • tonyedgecombe 8y ago
      I suspect Apples defence would always be "we only have 15% of the smart phone market".
      • gnicholas 8y ago
        The key question in many antitrust cases is: what is the “relevant market”? Their worldwide share of sales is probably not the touchstone in a US antitrust case. Certainly plaintiffs would argue this, and point to their larger market share domestically.
  • dirkgently 8y ago
    So you would make the same argument for Facebook, YouTube too? Or, as I have learned from HN, different rules apply to Apple vs rest of the tech companies?
    • ProAm 8y ago
      > So you would make the same argument for Facebook, YouTube too? Absolutely. They can do whatever they want with their platform. Facebook bans people and groups all the time based on it's own whims, Google and Youtube as well.
  • picsao 8y ago
    The Roman's build all the roads, if you dislike the Roman's just yield any traffic.
• jmull 8y ago
  >Apple removing it, but not removing imgur, reddit, or any other site as an app, is playing favorites and making excuses. That doesn't match what they are claiming though. Apple requires such sites to have a filter to prevent child-porn and the claim here is that Tumblr was removed for not having one that works. If those other services have a filter that works (sufficiently, I guess) while Tumblr doesn't, then it's not playing favorites, it's just having a policy and enforcing it. To limit the dissemination of child-porn. It might be hard to sue for that.
  • wlesieutre 8y ago
    Safari to be removed from iOS 13 due to child pornography issues because some websites don’t have a filter
    • bitwize 8y ago
      Apple apps automatically get an exemption from all App Store rules.
    • jmull 8y ago
      I think the guideline applies to apps with user-generated content. Now, I'm sure you can come up with an argument about why this still applies to Safari... but it's also easy to come up with an argument about why it does not. Certainly, the relationship between the content and the app is much more tenuous for Safari -- where the content is everything published on the web by anyone -- and the Tumblr app, where the objectionable content is hosted by and for the Tumblr app. In the end, you can argue Apple should have drawn the line about responsibility for content in a different place, but clearly a reasonable line can be drawn that allows Safari but doesn't allow Tumblr (with a broken child-porn filter).
    • alphabettsy 8y ago
      Safari has a site filter, Tumblr doesn’t. How effective filters are is another question, but Apple has long stated rules that apps must not provide access to “objectionable” content without some kind of access control which doesn’t seem to meaningfully exist on Tumblr.
• sandov 8y ago
  It's their platform, and they should be able to do anything with it. That's in fact one of the reasons I don't use an iphone and don't develop iphone apps.
• alphabettsy 8y ago
  I disagree. From my experience, I was shown porn with what appeared to be underage actors, which I reported, without looking for it. The format of sites like Reddit, Imgur, etc. do not lend themselves to discovering images you’re not looking for from my experience. Reddit, for example, is divided into sub-Reddit’s that are moderated as well as some being marked NSFW. What I don’t understand is why multi-million and billion dollar companies can’t try harder. On many sites a simple search will find forbidden content that they somehow can’t find? Gimme a break.
• stcredzero 8y ago
  ...with Tumblr being forced to mass-wipe things they're deleting both sfw and nsfw content. Most likely based upon reports, which in Tumblr culture are typically fake. Isn't this Karma out to get them? What Tumblr has done to its users, Apple has done to Tumblr. There should be grounds for suing apple in mistreating the market in this manner There should be grounds for suing Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook for presenting themselves as platforms for expression, then turning around and acting as censors.
• justicezyx 8y ago
  I stumble upon this page: http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/fashion-beauty/difference-between-nudity-in-art-and-pornography/ http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/fashion-beaut... By ddging "legal artistic pornography", note the comment section has this: """ Nope. There is no difference between art & pornography in art: The distinction is an imaginary one . I shall now debunk our authors premises, with historical context. “1.Nudity in art has been an accepted subject since ancient times while pornography is an unacceptable expression which has been developed in later years.” Nope. This is a common misconception, but images & texts pertaining to the act of sex & sexuality, what our author would argue is porn, has existed in art since mankind first found a way to scrawl rudimentary images having sex. Later societies constantly pretend that earlier societies didn’t do it, from the erotic frescoes of Rome, to the carvings of India’s Khajuraho Temples, to the 35,000 years old carving from ancient Germany (about 10,000 older that the “Venus of Willendorf”). “2.Nudity in art is natural and is meant to let the audience appreciate the human body while pornography is intentionally done to arouse sexual feelings in the audience.” Then you’ve just declared any amount of ancient classical art pieces to be pornography, since many of them were designed to arouse. ” 3.Models of nude artworks pose naturally and do not convey any eroticism while pornographic models have expressions and poses that are erotic and sexually arousing.” What does one mean pose naturally, any pose one can do with the human body is by definition natural. Such a distinction as you are trying to construct is a distinction without a distinction, because the poses one would use to arouse are as possible by humans as the pose of eating. ” 4.Nudity in art is accepted in society while nudity in pornography is seen as inappropriate and is banned in most societies.” Which just goes to show the double standard. The subject matter is the subject matter, which is why this tactic has been used for centuries to try to get artwork banned. You can’t show kids this image because it’s porn…. Oh you mean Michelangelo’s David is porn? How is it porn? It has nudity in it. “5.In some cases, what one person may view as art might be viewed as pornography by another depending upon how the presentation affects the audience.” Which again shows that the difference between what makes up pornography & what makes up art is an artificial distinction, that only exists in the minds of people who imagine it exists. Read more: Difference Between Nudity in Art and Pornography | Difference Between http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/fashion-beauty/difference-between-nudity-in-art-and-pornography/#ixzz5XQ36HPQi http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/fashion-beaut... """ My reading is that there is no such thing as artistic pornography.
• makomk 8y ago
  Tumblr's reporting process for illegal images is terrible. Like, I reported someone posting sexually explicit images of themselves whilst claiming to be underage, and about two months later I got back a form email telling me that they were finally looking into it and might or might not do something about it.
• notafraudster 8y ago
  First, "mistreating the market" isn't a thing -- a store is under no obligation to continue to sell a product they don't want. There may be an anti-trust claim to be made about walled gardens more generally, but there is no appetite among regulators to make it, and such a claim would be more properly directed toward Google on the basis of current antitrust thinking. Apple can give Tumblr preferential or worse terms for any reason or no reason at all. Second, as it relates to enforcement. Your post shadows the fact that you disagree more broadly with removing child pornography because of collateral damage. To be totally frank I find that line of argumentation viscerally disgusting. But it's also the wrong frame for the argument: you additionally claim that given Apple wants to crack down, they are cracking down the wrong way. I am not sure what the issue with selectivity is. Why is it a problem to apply higher standards to large, commercial applications who could easily be coerced to improve enforcement (as opposed to, like, Joe Random making some app that finds images online)? Why, when choosing among large commercial applications, should Apple not go after the worst offenders (in quantities of violation or currently enforcement protocols) first? This seems like an efficient use of enforcement resources on Apple's part. One target at a time, optimizing for those who are worst in complicity and most able to take action?
  • devwastaken 8y ago
    "First, "mistreating the market" isn't a thing" It's clear what Apple and other app stores do. They are a market that makes plenty of money, and they mistreat it. There are losses of revenue over this mistreatment, and that should be actionable. Wether it is or isn't is a matter of law, but law doesn't cover what is and isn't right. "Your post shadows the fact that you disagree more broadly with removing child pornography because of collateral damage. To be totally frank I find that line of argumentation viscerally disgusting." That's a strawman. By that logic if I say taking down the internet because cp exists on it, is bad, then I'm defending it. I'm saying that tumblr is going on a spree of mass deletion to appease apple, not in any targeted manner to the initial problem, being that of cp found on their site. I'm saying that all platforms have this, and targeting tumblr for it in this improper way, removing the app, is doing far more harm than good. If Apple cared about solving the problem of cp they'd get in touch with Tumblr and tell them effective methods they should impliment that are fair with other apps, and if they don't do it, then they'll remove tumblr app. Instead, now those who were using Tumblr to share cp will take to a different site, instead of facing repercussions. If anything Apple could potentially be interferring with ongoing investigations of cp by their lack of cooperation. I think that form of illigal activity goes above the grain of just throwing things into chaos to set examples.
• zackmorris 8y ago
  A straightforward way to move a lawsuit like this forward might be to sue to have apps similar to Tumblr taken down. Make Apple choose to either take down all of the apps or pay some large penalty based on damages that are easy to show - find the offending content in each app and cite the law(s) that were broken. Basically prove to Apple that they risk the viability of their app store when they censor specific apps. With the full legal power of Apple at their own disposal, they might just find a clever way to keep this situation from ever happening again.
• scarface74 8y ago
  Tumblr is not being forced to do anything. What do you gain by using the app instead of the website?