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Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

472 points by phoe-krk 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
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nailer 8y ago
Blog spam / Vox media. Original URL: https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/231885248-Sensitive-content https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/231885248-Sensi... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18590605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18590605
- nailer 8y ago
  Ugh the original source is now marked as a dupe and The Verge version is on front page. Dang/sctb please do better!
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
keketi 8y ago
"Tumblr bans all of its content"
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
buboard 8y ago
Alternative Title: "Tumblr will lose 80% of its visitors come December 18th" Another one: "Tumblr preparing to shut down"
- fullshark 8y ago
  Which is what Oath probably wants.
  - masklinn 8y ago
    "fuck oath mate" has never been so true, or so relevant.
    - scottmcdot 8y ago
      Nah it's "fucking oath mate"
  - rthomas6 8y ago
    As someone out of the loop, can I get an explanation for this?
    - debt 8y ago
      Too expensive to police. Losing users every month, downward trends, etc. Tumblr has become a money loser and won't ever be competitive with Facebook, TikTok, etc. Another botched acquisition.
      - danaris 8y ago
        > and won't ever be competitive with Facebook, TikTok, etc. Which is just another example of why the corporate culture today is absolutely insane. Why can there not be a site like Tumblr that is perfectly stable (leaving aside for the moment whether today's Tumblr is or could become that stable), but is not and could never be "the next Facebook" or "the next Twitter"?
        plorkyeran 8y ago
        Sites which break even do tend to keep on trucking. The fact that Tumblr now seems unlikely to become huge is relevant specifically because it's a money pit that needs further investment merely to continue to exist.
        debt 8y ago
        Because Oath's board would rather pay it's useless execs fat salaries rather than competent engineers to maintain Tumblr.
- b1r6 8y ago
  This is exactly correct. Sure there are "clean" portions of Tumblr, but from what I can tell the real purpose is to host adult content. And there's nothing wrong with that! It's a fantastic magnet for eyes, with which to show ads. They're basically killing themselves with this.
  - x0x0 8y ago
    The vast vast majority of advertisers do not want to be displayed next to porn. Think of tumblr as nothing but a way to get pageviews for Cheerios and Volvo ads. It explains their decisions perfectly.
    - michaelchisari 8y ago
      Every day results in another example of why free platforms supported by advertising might not be viable a long term solution. I've always said that cheap is better than free. If all services like Tumblr had debuted at a nominal $0.25 or $0.50 a month and that had become normalized as a way to support the platform without mining data or being at the whims of advertisers, the internet might be in a better place. Instead we have clickbait, engagement addiction and users as products and not customers.
      - jotm 8y ago
        Maybe pay per (full) view? Granular to 1 view if possible, with thumbnails? People would conserve their views but still watch/view the stuff they like. Better than shitty Chinese ads that make me wary of even opening the Youtube app.
      - Hoasi 8y ago
        > Every day results in another example of why free platforms supported by advertising might not be viable a long term solution. Not just free platforms. No publication supported by advertising is a viable long-term solution let alone a desirable one. Advertising-based publishing was never a good idea. The current state of the press is a good example of that too. Unfortunately, there are not that many viable alternatives. People would pay for good journalism, not sure they would or should pay to reblog memes and other people's posts.
- varjag 8y ago
  Really, way to shoot yourself in the foot. What's next, Twitter banning all bot accounts?
CPLX 8y ago
This bit, within the linked story, seems relevant: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/20/18104366/tumblr-ios-app-child-pornography-removed-from-app-store https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/20/18104366/tumblr-ios-app-...
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  While this may well be a factor in their decision, it seems highly unlikely to me that (a) Apple was entirely unaware porn existed on Tumblr for the years the app was in the store before November 2018, and (b) the only way Tumblr could ensure there was no child porn on their servers was to ban everything that smacks of NSFW-ness down to "female-presenting nipples." Tumblr's CEO said they've been considering this move for months, and I don't see any reason to doubt him. Tumblr has never made money, as far as I know, and Yahoo's new corporate parent Oath seems to be a lot less mellow about that sort of thing. I suspect this is a necessary step before they open the advertising floodgates and see if they can get Tumblr to start paying for itself. Losing a massive amount of their userbase is an acceptable outcome as long as there's still enough users there for more advertising to turn a a profit.
  - PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
    b might not be so insane if you consider that tumblr is used by a lot of people who posts selfies. That would include a lot of teens/tweens. The problem with selfies is that they wouldn't be in anything like photoDNA and thus impossible to catch by any of the modern day algorithms except for the ones designed to catch porn in general. They might not have any better solution (of course they would ban stuff as it was reported, but that might not be good enough) and apple's move forced their hand. Guess the question is what caused apple to do what it did now.
azizinnn 8y ago
Well, there is a healthy community concerning a particular obscure kink I have been 'given', that is not present anywhere else. I wonder what are suitable places to migrate to.
- frozenport 8y ago
  Reddit?
- antidaily 8y ago
  Go on...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- wongarsu 8y ago
  DeviantART is probably the closest alternative, but with more focus on the individual instead of the interaction between people
  - notyourday 8y ago
    There are lots of big photographers that are complaining that DA has been killing their stuff as well so I would be very surprised if it won't add similar policies.
- MorrisofOrange 8y ago
  Start a subreddit. Try to get as many people in your community to migrate before the 17th.
  - claudiawerner 8y ago
    Reddit isn't exactly known for its tolerance of sexual content that doesn't harm anyone (or violate anyone's privacy).
0x54D5 8y ago
RIP Tumblr 2007 - 2018
pdimitar 8y ago
If Verizon bought Tumblr with the sole purpose of having one more service to serve ads to, and if banning the adult content move aims to please the advertisers then oh boy, are they in for a nasty surprise. Tumblr will become a ghost town in days.
- jrs95 8y ago
  Well, the "otherkin" will probably still be there, so I guess if anyone wants to market to them..
  - pdimitar 8y ago
    Yeah, good luck with that. :D
  - tazjin 8y ago
    By the time they're old enough to purchase things online they probably won't be using Tumblr anymore ...
- AznHisoka 8y ago
  It was practically the only thing worth visiting Tumblr for!
  - WilliamEdward 8y ago
    That and fan fiction - which mostly has porn in it anyway
    - flukus 8y ago
      Hopefully it will all move back to traditional gallery and forum sites that don't have tumblrs horrendous "what's a tab" UI and don't slow my 8 core 16GB of RAM machine to a halt.
- nickthegreek 8y ago
  Agreed. So many artists, photographers and models used tumblr to showcase their work. It was also easy to link your blog to a .com with little to no webdev experience. The only other social media network out there with a following that allows near the same level of expression is twitter and I have already seen posts from artists directing their followers there. But twitter is no real substitute to what tumblr offered. I imagine tumblr's bandwidth costs are going to shrink exponentially.
vortico 8y ago
Isn't that the point of Tumblr these days? I honestly don't know of any non-adult Tumlbr pages. It seems to consist entirely of premium camgirl pages, NSFW LGBT discussion, furry and hentai art, and artistic nude photography.
- throWoway 8y ago
  The safe mode changes already started the move of a bunch of those communities to other sites, so it was expected at this point.
- buboard 8y ago
  "It's like pinterest for porn."
  - ourcat 8y ago
    Lets build "sinterest" ;) update: Looks like someone already started...
    - buboard 8y ago
      hahaha. obvious startup idea is obvious
- intrasight 8y ago
  I used to use Tumblr a lot - and hardly ever saw any porn. I must have been using it wrong :)
  - PeanutNore 8y ago
    Sounds like you were using it wrong
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  They should really just have made another site (which could be fairly easy given they already have the technology developed, just get a new domain, set up a new server instance, tweak the design and that's it) if they want a "clean" one. Tumblr is essentially a porn site, banning all the porn from it to compete with Instagram makes as much sense as banning all the porn from PornHub to compete with YouTube.
gammateam 8y ago
as soon as the buyout news hit I said “well there goes all the porn” Surprised the berkeley intern didnt put me on blast on social media Or maybe she did but everyone said “he’s right tho”
antidaily 8y ago
I havent blogged on Tumblr in 6 years but I bookmarked some really great curated photography/art sites that were 99% SFW. Safe Mode login loop thing was so annoying I gave up on checking them. I noticed a couple other Tumblrs I enjoyed moving stuff to instagram.
13415 8y ago
> Banned content includes [...] female-presenting nipples [...] Finally we can sleep at night again. The presentation of nipples is truly one of the most despicable crimes, right after genocide.
- microtherion 8y ago
  AFTER?
bvinc 8y ago
My daughter at 12 got sucked into Tumblr and developed an eating disorder. She was in this gigantic web of pro-ana tumblrs with crazy diet plans that tell you to eat like 100 calories a day. Then the app would just keep suggesting more, "skin and bones", "thinspo", "meanspo". Holy crap there are some scary corners of Tumblr. I of course am more mindful of what she looks at, but she was hiding it and I can't monitor everything. It's hard to balance my love of free speech with the responsibilities of myself, these bs Tumblr pages, and the app suggestions. From what I've seen, Tumblr can be a very toxic place and I could understand why advertisers would have problems with the content that ends up next to their ads. I wish them luck trying to figure out this mess.
- NorthOf33rd 8y ago
  Gosh, that's tough, and I'm hoping she came out the other side stronger. This doesn't seem specific to tumblr though. I can't think of a network that doesn't have the same dark corners and nasty reinforcement. It's the internet.
  - nashashmi 8y ago
    No, it is not the internet! It is a recommendation engine. It is a content network in the business of profit. It is a social entrapment. The internet is a bunch of channels (websites) with subchannels (groups). Sometimes channels that have earned far too much legitimacy overflow into illegitimate corners. And that is a problem. It is like CNN with great content and then having crappy content. How do you start ranking sites then? How do you as a website evaluator start white-listing domains then? I know you are defending free speech while encouraging selective roaming. But that is not an easy act. Some have difficulty while others do not. Some can moderate themselves while others cannot. Restriction + Avoidance is better than Exposure + Ignorance towards these harmful things.
- walrus01 8y ago
  If you think those parts are scary, you should see the "yiff". Basically, furry porn. In the modern era it's considered rude to judge people for their kinky sex life, but some of the illustrations and cartoons in that community are highly unusual. To put it politely.
bookbinder 8y ago
Honestly, I'm surprised it took this long. I'm assumed Yahoo would have banned/purged adult content immediately after buying Tumblr.
- ams6110 8y ago
  I have this vague memory that they did, and then had to backtrack, but I could be thinking of another service.
  - sincerely 8y ago
    No, I think you're right. I remember them announcing they would be banning it.
  - JenBarb 8y ago
    it wasn't a full on ban, but I do remember drama a year or two ago when Tumblr banned LGBTQ+ content from their safe search. This was also eventually backtracked.
  - rnd0 8y ago
    I have a feeling that it's possible we're going to see this ban play out the same way, I'm not sure. As many people have pointed out here and elsewhere -the platform is largely used for porn, and once those users are driven out you'll just be left with tumblweeds. I feel like there's a 50 percent chance that is going to occur to someone up the food chain in the next couple of weeks, and this policy will be quietly walked back.
51lver 8y ago
The way things are going with centralization, pretty soon the web itself will be unsuitable for adult media. Maybe we need a xxx:// protocol instead of the .xxx domain suffix.
- ravenstine 8y ago
  Someone make a Github repo so we can design this new protocol!
  - LinuxBender 8y ago
    It does exist. It's not a new protocol, you can use (just about) anything that supports tcp. The domain names all end in ".onion"
    - matte_black 8y ago
      it must be called xxx
      - LinuxBender 8y ago
        You could cycle through names until you get one with xxx in it. :-)
        duskwuff 8y ago
        There are tools to do that automatically. A prefix of "xxx" or "xxxxxx" can be found almost instantaneously; "xxxxxxxxx" should be doable given an hour or two. https://github.com/lachesis/scallion https://github.com/lachesis/scallion
    - ravenstine 8y ago
      For such purposes, Tor would be pretty inefficient. I suppose one could say that the inefficiency is a "feature" that makes the system self-limiting, curbing porn addiction. LOL
crankylinuxuser 8y ago
I figured the writing was on the wall with that whole garbage static page, along with "Disabled due to safe-mode". Of course, you had to have an account and all its bullshit to 'turn off' safe mode. Whereas, reddit, imgur, pornhub, and all of them have no safe-mode garbage. Reddit has a click-thru if you hit a sub on a work machine (and then you can bail out). But yeah, this is setting a "dead by" date probably 6 months from now. Talk about killing a property.
- basic1 8y ago
  I still haven't figured out how this works, Tumblr smashes the page to 1/3 the screen and displays stuff I don't care about in the center 2/3.
  - sincerely 8y ago
    It confuses me too. Is there a way to turn it off?
    - dnhz 8y ago
      It’s called dashboard view, and some blogs choose to force it.
  - crooked-v 8y ago
    Well, hey, now you won't have to worry about it in two weeks...
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    That's a different terribly designed setting. Safe mode is mostly 'just' forcing a login.
- JBReefer 8y ago
  Tumblr has been repeatedly valued at around $0, and I believe Yahoo did a huge write down at one point. I think they know this will kill the site and that's intentional. Tumblr has never been successfully monetized for various reasons, and occasionally generates bad press. It's sad - the "old internet" is quickly dying off. It basically leaves image boards, non-default Reddit, and SA. I've heard a lot of people are back on Usenet these days? Discord really doesn't do it for me.
istorical 8y ago
I have been archiving many of my favorite tumblr's for some time now, but will have to go in and refresh my downloads. Highly recommend this app called TumblThree for archiving (also TumblTwo) https://www.jzab.de/content/tumblthree https://www.jzab.de/content/tumblthree The UI is a little annoying and takes a little discovery to figure out, but the actual setup / install is painless. Edit: after reading more about the shutdown, it appears Tumblr may have their own export tools, they could be superior if you are exporting your own content, I'm not really sure.
- eigenstuff 8y ago
  Thank you for this! I had a pretty successful Tumblr where I posted all my crazy, colorful class notes from my math and physics classes and I've been wanting to get all those scans off there and into another place for safe back up. I had hundreds of posts on there, this will actually make it feasible to do this.
  - solarkraft 8y ago
    Hey, since you mentioned it, could you tell me where to find your blog?
- ourcat 8y ago
  There are also many scripts out there in many languages on Github to 'archive' tumblrs. YMMV. ;)
  - computer96 8y ago
    This is a good Python script for backing up Tumblr blogs or likes: https://github.com/bbolli/tumblr-utils/blob/master/tumblr_backup.md https://github.com/bbolli/tumblr-utils/blob/master/tumblr_ba... There's also this Windows app for backing up your liked posts: https://github.com/neuro-sys/tumblr-likes-downloader https://github.com/neuro-sys/tumblr-likes-downloader which makes you create an "app" to log in to your account, so it can download posts that require logging in to view.
olivermarks 8y ago
There's always demand for 'adult content' so my assumption is sites like steemit and minds are going to get a sudden population rush, especially given Steemit's monetization model, on December 18. Oath I'll assume are shuttering sites they can't data mine for marketing intel on users, and to not be associated with the terrabytes of 'adult content' they currently host...
Karrot_Kream 8y ago
For folks leaving Tumblr, the Fediverse is a great alternative. You can host your own instance if you want assurance that content will not be banned, or join one of the many existing instances that already exist around Tumblr-like and LGBT-like interests.
LeeCyriaca 8y ago
there are a lot of jokes being made along the lines of "there goes their userbase" but for me personally this is a huge loss. especially for those of us who have certain kinks, Tumblr to this day has been the only place to ever exist where women could safely express their sexuality. it allowed us to meet like-minded people, it allowed us to break the taboo and it ended the isolation that many of us felt. Tumblrs main asset has always been it's community,and I'm deathly afraid this new policy will take all of this away
- rajacombinator 8y ago
  This is the new reality of the internet, best get used to it. Free speech is dead.
  - ajkjk 8y ago
    This seems like the opposite of free speech being dead. A website shut down and you can just... go... make or use another one, anytime you like, without having to worry about it even being illegal.
    - bredren 8y ago
      I also see this as a market opportunity for a startup to adapt / improve on tumblr and fill the void. An unexpected, and permanent content restriction on a major platform is a disruptive event.
      - Apocryphon 8y ago
        Yesterday's BitChute discussion [0] brought up the unfortunate fact that many ostensibly free-speech zone sites such as Voat and Gab just end up being havens for far right bigots and conspiracy theorists. Made me wonder if that toxic stew could be balanced if far left activists brigaded those platforms. With this story, it'd be even more amusing if amateur erotica creators and kink community people migrated from Tumblr to those places as well. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18583211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18583211
dimensi0nal 8y ago
"Porn site bans porn"
phreack 8y ago
Surprisingly, the thing I'd been using it most for, was that it's the only major social media website I know that still shows posts in chronological order.
- Groxx 8y ago
  The app is rather insistent about showing me the same post 20x while hiding new things though :\ I'm very sad to see chronological continuing to disappear.
- msoucy 8y ago
  It's gotten to the point where that's actually a selling point for networks such as Mastodon... which is silly, because it should be normal behavior.
- Hard_Space 8y ago
  Ironically, that has changed in the last few hours. A number of sites seem to be getting sorted randomly. Never seen it happen before.
ourcat 8y ago
This strikes me as a heck of an opportunity to create a system (with a tumblr importer) specifically replicating Tumblr, but for pr0n. "fumblr" ?
- intrasight 8y ago
  Given that the porn industry basically invented the monetized internet, I assume that the "opportunity" was seized long ago.
  - ourcat 8y ago
    I don't think the adult industry has truly been able to simplify things as much as products like tumblr (and other social media networks.) Fetlife probably does a good job for certain 'niches'. What I mean is, all the 'tumblrees' and "their" 'content' ( so much air-quote) will want to go somewhere. En masse. Soon. Most likely in protest.
    - kinos 8y ago
      Why did you word that as if the poster didn't create the content within the blog?
      - iamdave 8y ago
        Tumblr as a platform exists on shared content, and actively measures, and provides to the user-measurements of "reblogs". In the context of this discussion, so many user account blogs that could be tagged as 'adult content' are full of reblogged sexual images that the account owner identifies with or wants to advertise as the type of sexual activity they are interested in. Many comments here are pointing out Fetlife as a refuge for some tumblr ex-pats. Speaking as a Fetlife user, it's not hard to see why the 'their' is in quotes. When you see a tumblr profile on someone's fetlife profile it's often described by the profile owner as "you can see the kind of stuff I'm into on my tumblr" with a small ratio of original content to reshared content. Either images from a movie, online porn, or just "reblog" of another tumblr user's content when not the blogger's own images that are being posted. This isn't me taking a position on adult content on tumblr, denouncing it or condoning it either way-but I think that bit of context might help answer your question. It doesn't define the entire experience for the entirety of the porographically inclined userbase, but it's relevant.
amaccuish 8y ago
This sucks. I just deleted my profile since it'll all get deleted anyway. It's hard to get out there with particular fetish interests in the gay community. It was a great way to meet some genuinely awesome people. Now all I've got is Recon, which is aimed more at dating.
largehotcoffee 8y ago
RIP Tumblr.
rmoriz 8y ago
FetLife should offer an migration assistant to Tumblr authors and collect the free business.
solarkraft 8y ago
Tumblr was a great place for porn. This is a great opportunity for a competitor to snap up the community and I wonder who it will be.
xhruso00 8y ago
I think some of the content will move to Instagram and Twitter
- bluetidepro 8y ago
  Instagram is extremely strict with NSFW content today because of Facebook. Twitter, however, is def more lenient with it.
bliblah 8y ago
It's a shame because there are some genuinely talented artists there that partake in NSFW art. A lot of the people I follow seem to be moving their work to pixiv and taking commissions through patreon. Some are straight up uploading porn on twitter which is funny considering it is even more public than tumblr. To be fair though, there some artists push boundaries far harder than others especially concerning the "age" of the imaginary character. However I find these groups far more tame than some fandoms of shows like Stranger Things that straight up sexualize real life kids such as Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown.
qwerty456127 8y ago
That's exactly the thing it was useful for. There was just so much beauty (as well as so much weirdness neighboring it but I didn't mind) RIP Tumblr. Anybody capable and interested please back-up and re-upload to some alternative (what are any, BTW)? I was so glad such a censorship-free place existed.
fabricexpert 8y ago
If you think you can code a tumblr clone in a weekend, this is your opportunity. You have 2 weeks, go!
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  It's possible to code this fast but hardly possible to host it the way it would handle the load without a million dollar invoice or to find an investor that would pay it this fast.
- Laforet 8y ago
  And please make it usable without a dedicated app. Over the years I have been using tumblr less and less because most templates will crash any browser should you dare to scroll down.
- wukerplank 8y ago
  I wonder how many people will rush for this. Even if they get it to scale, what's the business model? Or just do it like Tumblr and run on VC money as long as possible.
qwerty456127 8y ago
I wish the could just tag particular subtumblrs as NSFW or something and filter these by default. Users should be let to choose for themselves. Banning adult content is ridiculous.
- msoucy 8y ago
  I believe that those systems are currently in place, but either aren't considered to be "enough", or people aren't using them properly.
- Laforet 8y ago
  There is already forced login for tagged adult subs, as well as a quarantine mode that embed the affected subs to your timeline rather than accessible as its own subdomain. If anything this has already killed much discoverability because search engines are prevented from crawling and their in-house search is useless anyway.
bcheung 8y ago
Anyone have stats on how much of Tumblr is adult? My impression was that it is a huge percentage of it.
- mrlala 8y ago
  I've never been on a tumblr that wasn't adult.. Also, I believe on mobile you "had" to use their app if you wanted to see 18+ content users. So they were indirectly promoting their app with nsfw content...
BlueAThrow 8y ago
Apple is calling the shots here. Tumblr was not going to be allowed back on the app store while adult content was on the site.
- jphalimi 8y ago
  Isn't Reddit allowed on iOS?
  - Mindwipe 8y ago
    Reddit has been removed from the app store more than once.
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  Ah, I knew I would see this hot take here! I responded elsewhere, but in short form, this is very likely far more driven by Tumblr's new corporate parents wanting to make the site friendlier to advertisers.
- post_break 8y ago
  Citing Kotaku "In an email a spokesperson from Tumblr clarified that the removal of adult content was not related to the app’s removal from the iOS store."
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- AngryAnt 8y ago
  A guess would be that no, they weren't going back on the store without adjusting their rating to R. And obviously showing that they can keep child porn off their service.
dictum 8y ago
Even Digg didn't set out to die overnight. Come to think of it, of all decade-plus websites, Tumblr is exactly the one for whom suicide is an entirely expected ending. Moody, unique, too obscure for the mainstream but popular enough among the kind of people who would appreciate you. You were the kind to enjoy poetry and inspirational images, but those inspirational images just couldn't give you enough dopamine. You sought a higher high, and would happily do so unnoticed, until some higher-up found the hidden closet.
- sparkie 8y ago
  Digg's demise was due to its failure to police their content and to leave it up to the users. I remember it being a fun place, and then it became overrun by do-gooders we called the "bury brigades". Anything remotely interesting or creative got killed and you were left with press-releases from a few big media outlets. A dull news feed. Many people moved to reddit, but /r/politics is pretty much exactly what became of Digg. If reddit didn't have diversity in its sub communities (and different people moderating them), it would've probably suffered the same fate by now.
  - scelerat 8y ago
    > but /r/politics is pretty much exactly what became of Digg Could you say some more about what you mean by that?
    - sparkie 8y ago
      A filtered news feed of the political left. The difference is /r/politics has a whitelist of "acceptable" domains. Essentially anything left of Lenin is OK, and anything else is deemed "far right". The bury brigades still exist in the comments.
      - torstenvl 8y ago
        Irony abounds.
      - 8y ago
elsonrodriguez 8y ago
Advertisers are being given undue influence in the evolution of our culture.
aw3c2 8y ago
Keep an eye on https://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Tumblr https://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Tumblr or join #tumbledown on EFNet to join ArchiveTeam's coordinated, collaborative effort in saving things.
jhcl 8y ago
American indecency running wild again. When does that bunch of religious extremists make a difference between social unacceptable behavior and physical lust. Go ahead with your KKK, QAnon and anti-feminist meetings but keep your tighty-whities on to avoid shocking people. What a sick bunch of religious extremists.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
therealmarv 8y ago
Any alternative from China or Russia? This adult censoring from US (even Google is doing that!) is driving me nuts as an adult European. Or anything backed on IPFS ?!
Grue3 8y ago
The real culprit needs to be called out here. Fuck apple and their puritanical crusade against porn. Anyone who appreciates NSFW content needs to boycott them.
- intopieces 8y ago
  Huh? How does Apple play into this?
  - chipotle_coyote 8y ago
    Apple pulled the Tumblr iOS app after complaining to Tumblr about them hosting child pornography, not just NSFW blogs, and not seeing action being taken. As I mentioned elsewhere, Tumblr stripping adult content is very likely a move toward making their site advertiser-friendly, because Oath (their new corporate parent) does not have the tolerance for losing money that Yahoo did. I mean, yes, getting rid of all content from "female-presenting nipples" on up should technically get rid of the child porn, too, but the breadth of Tumblr's actions here make it highly unlikely this is primarily driven by getting the app back in the iOS App Store. (I mean, hell, Tumblr doesn't need an app, and it's not like Apple blocks you from surfing to porn sites on Safari.)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- urda 8y ago
  Apple pulled the app after they had found child pornography on the platform, not because it has porn. Otherwise how would the suite of reddit apps (another social site with plenty of porn) exist within the Apple ecosystem? Clearly Tumblr took the nuclear option and just banned everything instead, again not Apple. Please read up on the situation more before continuing.
  - Grue3 8y ago
    >Apple pulled the app after they had found child pornography on the platform, not because it has porn. They wouldn't let the app back into the app store unless they get rid of all porn. There's no reason why they would piss of most of their userbase otherwise. "Child pornography" is the classic "think of the children" misdirection, it has always been against the site rules, and the law. >How would the suite of reddit apps (another social site with plenty of porn) exist within the Apple ecosystem? They wouldn't for much longer. This is just the beginning.
zerealshadowban 8y ago
Interesting how the presentation of healthy sexuality and eroticism in US culture increasingly suffers under a joint assault by neo-puritans, radical feminists, middle-of-the-road advertisers, and gender-smashing warriors. By the gods, even at the gym the vast majority of Americans feel they must cover their body with towels when walking to/from the showers, and those who don't are eyed with suspicion. Similar trends are present in e.g. Sweden and France where the depiction of beautiful women in ads is now a socio-political problem. I wish for our cultures to look for inspiration to the Ancient Greeks' fundamental love of the human body and soul; some of which we can observe in the sculptures that have survived (not the beefy Roman copies); and some of the perspectives one may gather from surviving poetry, tales of normal nudity in social activities, and benevolent jokes about sex.
- dingoegret 8y ago
  You are confused between the Western myth making history in pop culture and factual history. Greek aesthetics in public art greatly favored modesty and was heavily influenced by adjacent semitic cultures. Real history is very different from the fictional romanticization in media. https://phoenicia.org/greek.html https://phoenicia.org/greek.html
- awakeasleep 8y ago
  "Presentation of healthy sexuality" is a pretty mixed up way to look at online pornography
  - icebraining 8y ago
    Online pornography comes in many forms, particularly on Tumblr.
  - jplayer01 8y ago
    This is literally the viewpoint that is the problem. Just because you don't like the kind of kinks and fetishes that other people have doesn't mean it isn't healthy or valuable. Especially on a place like tumblr, where communities are built around these sexual interests. It isn't some industry imposing artificial expectations on an unwilling populace. It's people who are genuinely into such a crazy variety of things and want to share that interest with other people. What could be more wholesome than that?
mrlala 8y ago
Did they ban HTML as well?
m-p-3 8y ago
It's like if 4chan was bought by someone who wanted to make it more family-friendly and get rid of /b/ or /s/. That will not go well.
- jasonjayr 8y ago
  4chan recently split SFW & NSFW boards onto separate domains ...
IkmoIkmo 8y ago
I don't really get it. Reddit can do porn and has an iOS app. A blanket ban just doesn't seem necessary, especially if it's a large part of your community and technically Tumblr isn't a particularly novel product in 2018, community is all you have.
screamingpepe 8y ago
Well, that's the end of Tumblr then. RIP.
turtle408 8y ago
As well, they turn off their half of the server fleet.
crazygringo 8y ago
Seeing as everyone seems to agree the whole point (if we're being real) of Tumblr is adult content, that there's at least some acknowledgement that there's real societal value in having a safe space for various kinds of healthy adult sexual kinks that are non-mainstream, and that with this move Tumblr will surely pull a Digg and probably disappear for all intents and purposes... ...why isn't Verizon managing to sell it to someone who wants to support that, instead of effectively shutting it down? Financially it doesn't make sense to me. If free porn sites make money, I really don't see how a porn-embracing Tumblr wouldn't do the same? Or just split the site in two automatically based on analysis of each account's contents, decide whether the "Tumblr" brand is more valuable for clean content or adult content, and sell off the adult side with or without the name. Sure splitting a site isn't technically the easiest thing, but I can't believe it wouldn't still make sense financially. Banning this much content seems like literally burning piles of money and just destroying value. Whatever happened to stockholder value... for real? How can a board approve this, or allow it to happen? Looking it up now, MindGeek owns PornHub and so many other sites... surely it would fit perfectly in their portfolio?
- corvos 8y ago
  4chan just split the SFW parts into 4channel for advertiser reasons, so its clearly a feasible idea
  - vharuck 8y ago
    One should wait a year or so to see if 4chan's split was a good decision. That site doesn't have a history of good financial decisions.
- Eridrus 8y ago
  HN's reaction is snarky and amusing, but based on a biased sample of snarky anecdotes. Verizon probably has actual data on the amount of content they are planning to ban, and the amount of traffic they get. Not to say they've though all the second order effects through, but they're working from a much more informed starting point than HN's consensus.
danimal88 8y ago
If only we demanded more of the violence industry rather than the sex policing industry.
Rjevski 8y ago
So adult content is apparently immoral, but stalking their visitors by leaking their data to over 100 “partners” (according to their non compliant GDPR forced “consent” screen) is okay? Lol.
perseusprime11 8y ago
Take note, Instagram!
leppr 8y ago
> Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose. That's the big positive from this announcement. Giving ample prior warning, and even helping the transition will certainly atenuate the feeling of betrayal community members have when being ousted. I sure wish Yahoo did this during the first "advertiser cleansing", back when they acquired Tumblr. Instead, I remember the dread as I scrolled through my blog to find 5 to 10% of the carefully curated pictures on it had been censored out, with no warning whatsoever.
mimixco 8y ago
This is sad. Tumblr was one of the last few places that adults could share explicit photos. Without them, everything will be paid sites. :-(
Wowfunhappy 8y ago
I think this should be considered the original source, as opposed to the Verge article? https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/231885248-Sensitive-content https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/231885248-Sensi...
bjornstar 8y ago
They really downplayed the effect of Apple removing the tumblr app from their app store. With the tumblr app is still gone from the Apple app store for 3 weeks now, it's very hard not to see this move as being directed by Apple. I think it's disappointing that they chose to block all adult content rather than filter adult content in the iOS app. The world would be much better off without Apple dictating what we can put on our websites.
zxcvbn4038 8y ago
I worked at Tumblr up until the Verizon merger so this story drew my interest. Most of the people who work there are too young to remember Betamax but that sounds like the direction things are going. Good news is that the government of Turkey can finally stop complaining to Tumblr about all the gay porn -- they are REALLY good at finding it (Short KMB!) Seriously though Tumblr never made any money on the adult content - they refused to run advertising on it - it was questionable that the adult content brought eyeballs that stayed around for the non-adult content. It was just a matter of time before the accounting people started wondering how much less their monthly S3 bill might be without the petabytes of un-monetizable porn. Now the question is, can Nyan Cat memes and a Minecraft blog support the business and justify the merger. Maybe Justin Timberlake is still in the market?
- joshstrange 8y ago
  > Seriously though Tumblr never made any money on the adult content - they refused to run advertising on it I can't believe this, I only follow(ed?) NSFW blogs and I see ads and sponsored content all the time.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
rmykhajliw 8y ago
Half or more Tumblr traffic comes for adult content, without this, it's just another platform to publish your I don't even know the purpose of Tumblr now: images, thoughts ? I suppose the market for Tumblr has changed and died - Medium has replaced tumblr everywhere.
qwerty456127 8y ago
BTW isn't there a viable distributed P2P alternative perhaps? Something like Aether but without content life time limit?
t0astbread 8y ago
What even is Tumblr at this point? Who would want to blog on a platform that restricts your speech so heavily?
stevenicr 8y ago
I wonder if tumblr will keep the content available for some time after the 17th and if the API (and dashboard) will still work for blogs that have been flagged as NSFA. The main wordpress importer depends on the tumblr API to connect and pull posts and pics and such I believe. So it would be nice if that was an option for some time after the shutdown.
m-localhost 8y ago
Anybody remembers the AI generated porn? Yahoo's experimental porn filter is the basis of beaches and dunes getting flagged as adult content. https://open_nsfw.gitlab.io https://open_nsfw.gitlab.io

472 points by phoe-krk 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Blog spam / Vox media. Original URL: https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/231885248-Sensitive-content https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/231885248-Sensi... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18590605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18590605

nailer 8y ago
Ugh the original source is now marked as a dupe and The Verge version is on front page. Dang/sctb please do better!

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

keketi 8y ago

"Tumblr bans all of its content"

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

buboard 8y ago

Alternative Title: "Tumblr will lose 80% of its visitors come December 18th" Another one: "Tumblr preparing to shut down"

fullshark 8y ago
Which is what Oath probably wants.
- masklinn 8y ago
  "fuck oath mate" has never been so true, or so relevant.
  - scottmcdot 8y ago
    Nah it's "fucking oath mate"
- rthomas6 8y ago
  As someone out of the loop, can I get an explanation for this?
  - debt 8y ago
    Too expensive to police. Losing users every month, downward trends, etc. Tumblr has become a money loser and won't ever be competitive with Facebook, TikTok, etc. Another botched acquisition.
    - danaris 8y ago
      > and won't ever be competitive with Facebook, TikTok, etc. Which is just another example of why the corporate culture today is absolutely insane. Why can there not be a site like Tumblr that is perfectly stable (leaving aside for the moment whether today's Tumblr is or could become that stable), but is not and could never be "the next Facebook" or "the next Twitter"?
      - plorkyeran 8y ago
        Sites which break even do tend to keep on trucking. The fact that Tumblr now seems unlikely to become huge is relevant specifically because it's a money pit that needs further investment merely to continue to exist.
      - debt 8y ago
        Because Oath's board would rather pay it's useless execs fat salaries rather than competent engineers to maintain Tumblr.
b1r6 8y ago
This is exactly correct. Sure there are "clean" portions of Tumblr, but from what I can tell the real purpose is to host adult content. And there's nothing wrong with that! It's a fantastic magnet for eyes, with which to show ads. They're basically killing themselves with this.
- x0x0 8y ago
  The vast vast majority of advertisers do not want to be displayed next to porn. Think of tumblr as nothing but a way to get pageviews for Cheerios and Volvo ads. It explains their decisions perfectly.
  - michaelchisari 8y ago
    Every day results in another example of why free platforms supported by advertising might not be viable a long term solution. I've always said that cheap is better than free. If all services like Tumblr had debuted at a nominal $0.25 or $0.50 a month and that had become normalized as a way to support the platform without mining data or being at the whims of advertisers, the internet might be in a better place. Instead we have clickbait, engagement addiction and users as products and not customers.
    - jotm 8y ago
      Maybe pay per (full) view? Granular to 1 view if possible, with thumbnails? People would conserve their views but still watch/view the stuff they like. Better than shitty Chinese ads that make me wary of even opening the Youtube app.
    - Hoasi 8y ago
      > Every day results in another example of why free platforms supported by advertising might not be viable a long term solution. Not just free platforms. No publication supported by advertising is a viable long-term solution let alone a desirable one. Advertising-based publishing was never a good idea. The current state of the press is a good example of that too. Unfortunately, there are not that many viable alternatives. People would pay for good journalism, not sure they would or should pay to reblog memes and other people's posts.
varjag 8y ago
Really, way to shoot yourself in the foot. What's next, Twitter banning all bot accounts?

CPLX 8y ago

This bit, within the linked story, seems relevant: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/20/18104366/tumblr-ios-app-child-pornography-removed-from-app-store https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/20/18104366/tumblr-ios-app-...

chipotle_coyote 8y ago
While this may well be a factor in their decision, it seems highly unlikely to me that (a) Apple was entirely unaware porn existed on Tumblr for the years the app was in the store before November 2018, and (b) the only way Tumblr could ensure there was no child porn on their servers was to ban everything that smacks of NSFW-ness down to "female-presenting nipples." Tumblr's CEO said they've been considering this move for months, and I don't see any reason to doubt him. Tumblr has never made money, as far as I know, and Yahoo's new corporate parent Oath seems to be a lot less mellow about that sort of thing. I suspect this is a necessary step before they open the advertising floodgates and see if they can get Tumblr to start paying for itself. Losing a massive amount of their userbase is an acceptable outcome as long as there's still enough users there for more advertising to turn a a profit.
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
  b might not be so insane if you consider that tumblr is used by a lot of people who posts selfies. That would include a lot of teens/tweens. The problem with selfies is that they wouldn't be in anything like photoDNA and thus impossible to catch by any of the modern day algorithms except for the ones designed to catch porn in general. They might not have any better solution (of course they would ban stuff as it was reported, but that might not be good enough) and apple's move forced their hand. Guess the question is what caused apple to do what it did now.

azizinnn 8y ago

Well, there is a healthy community concerning a particular obscure kink I have been 'given', that is not present anywhere else. I wonder what are suitable places to migrate to.

frozenport 8y ago
Reddit?
antidaily 8y ago
Go on...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
wongarsu 8y ago
DeviantART is probably the closest alternative, but with more focus on the individual instead of the interaction between people
- notyourday 8y ago
  There are lots of big photographers that are complaining that DA has been killing their stuff as well so I would be very surprised if it won't add similar policies.
MorrisofOrange 8y ago
Start a subreddit. Try to get as many people in your community to migrate before the 17th.
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  Reddit isn't exactly known for its tolerance of sexual content that doesn't harm anyone (or violate anyone's privacy).

0x54D5 8y ago

RIP Tumblr 2007 - 2018

pdimitar 8y ago

If Verizon bought Tumblr with the sole purpose of having one more service to serve ads to, and if banning the adult content move aims to please the advertisers then oh boy, are they in for a nasty surprise. Tumblr will become a ghost town in days.

jrs95 8y ago
Well, the "otherkin" will probably still be there, so I guess if anyone wants to market to them..
- pdimitar 8y ago
  Yeah, good luck with that. :D
- tazjin 8y ago
  By the time they're old enough to purchase things online they probably won't be using Tumblr anymore ...
AznHisoka 8y ago
It was practically the only thing worth visiting Tumblr for!
- WilliamEdward 8y ago
  That and fan fiction - which mostly has porn in it anyway
  - flukus 8y ago
    Hopefully it will all move back to traditional gallery and forum sites that don't have tumblrs horrendous "what's a tab" UI and don't slow my 8 core 16GB of RAM machine to a halt.
nickthegreek 8y ago
Agreed. So many artists, photographers and models used tumblr to showcase their work. It was also easy to link your blog to a .com with little to no webdev experience. The only other social media network out there with a following that allows near the same level of expression is twitter and I have already seen posts from artists directing their followers there. But twitter is no real substitute to what tumblr offered. I imagine tumblr's bandwidth costs are going to shrink exponentially.

vortico 8y ago

Isn't that the point of Tumblr these days? I honestly don't know of any non-adult Tumlbr pages. It seems to consist entirely of premium camgirl pages, NSFW LGBT discussion, furry and hentai art, and artistic nude photography.

throWoway 8y ago
The safe mode changes already started the move of a bunch of those communities to other sites, so it was expected at this point.
buboard 8y ago
"It's like pinterest for porn."
- ourcat 8y ago
  Lets build "sinterest" ;) update: Looks like someone already started...
  - buboard 8y ago
    hahaha. obvious startup idea is obvious
intrasight 8y ago
I used to use Tumblr a lot - and hardly ever saw any porn. I must have been using it wrong :)
- PeanutNore 8y ago
  Sounds like you were using it wrong
qwerty456127 8y ago
They should really just have made another site (which could be fairly easy given they already have the technology developed, just get a new domain, set up a new server instance, tweak the design and that's it) if they want a "clean" one. Tumblr is essentially a porn site, banning all the porn from it to compete with Instagram makes as much sense as banning all the porn from PornHub to compete with YouTube.

gammateam 8y ago

as soon as the buyout news hit I said “well there goes all the porn” Surprised the berkeley intern didnt put me on blast on social media Or maybe she did but everyone said “he’s right tho”

antidaily 8y ago

I havent blogged on Tumblr in 6 years but I bookmarked some really great curated photography/art sites that were 99% SFW. Safe Mode login loop thing was so annoying I gave up on checking them. I noticed a couple other Tumblrs I enjoyed moving stuff to instagram.

13415 8y ago

> Banned content includes [...] female-presenting nipples [...] Finally we can sleep at night again. The presentation of nipples is truly one of the most despicable crimes, right after genocide.

microtherion 8y ago
AFTER?

bvinc 8y ago

My daughter at 12 got sucked into Tumblr and developed an eating disorder. She was in this gigantic web of pro-ana tumblrs with crazy diet plans that tell you to eat like 100 calories a day. Then the app would just keep suggesting more, "skin and bones", "thinspo", "meanspo". Holy crap there are some scary corners of Tumblr. I of course am more mindful of what she looks at, but she was hiding it and I can't monitor everything. It's hard to balance my love of free speech with the responsibilities of myself, these bs Tumblr pages, and the app suggestions. From what I've seen, Tumblr can be a very toxic place and I could understand why advertisers would have problems with the content that ends up next to their ads. I wish them luck trying to figure out this mess.

NorthOf33rd 8y ago
Gosh, that's tough, and I'm hoping she came out the other side stronger. This doesn't seem specific to tumblr though. I can't think of a network that doesn't have the same dark corners and nasty reinforcement. It's the internet.
- nashashmi 8y ago
  No, it is not the internet! It is a recommendation engine. It is a content network in the business of profit. It is a social entrapment. The internet is a bunch of channels (websites) with subchannels (groups). Sometimes channels that have earned far too much legitimacy overflow into illegitimate corners. And that is a problem. It is like CNN with great content and then having crappy content. How do you start ranking sites then? How do you as a website evaluator start white-listing domains then? I know you are defending free speech while encouraging selective roaming. But that is not an easy act. Some have difficulty while others do not. Some can moderate themselves while others cannot. Restriction + Avoidance is better than Exposure + Ignorance towards these harmful things.
walrus01 8y ago
If you think those parts are scary, you should see the "yiff". Basically, furry porn. In the modern era it's considered rude to judge people for their kinky sex life, but some of the illustrations and cartoons in that community are highly unusual. To put it politely.

bookbinder 8y ago

Honestly, I'm surprised it took this long. I'm assumed Yahoo would have banned/purged adult content immediately after buying Tumblr.

ams6110 8y ago
I have this vague memory that they did, and then had to backtrack, but I could be thinking of another service.
- sincerely 8y ago
  No, I think you're right. I remember them announcing they would be banning it.
- JenBarb 8y ago
  it wasn't a full on ban, but I do remember drama a year or two ago when Tumblr banned LGBTQ+ content from their safe search. This was also eventually backtracked.
- rnd0 8y ago
  I have a feeling that it's possible we're going to see this ban play out the same way, I'm not sure. As many people have pointed out here and elsewhere -the platform is largely used for porn, and once those users are driven out you'll just be left with tumblweeds. I feel like there's a 50 percent chance that is going to occur to someone up the food chain in the next couple of weeks, and this policy will be quietly walked back.

51lver 8y ago

The way things are going with centralization, pretty soon the web itself will be unsuitable for adult media. Maybe we need a xxx:// protocol instead of the .xxx domain suffix.

ravenstine 8y ago
Someone make a Github repo so we can design this new protocol!
- LinuxBender 8y ago
  It does exist. It's not a new protocol, you can use (just about) anything that supports tcp. The domain names all end in ".onion"
  - matte_black 8y ago
    it must be called xxx
    - LinuxBender 8y ago
      You could cycle through names until you get one with xxx in it. :-)
      - duskwuff 8y ago
        There are tools to do that automatically. A prefix of "xxx" or "xxxxxx" can be found almost instantaneously; "xxxxxxxxx" should be doable given an hour or two. https://github.com/lachesis/scallion https://github.com/lachesis/scallion
  - ravenstine 8y ago
    For such purposes, Tor would be pretty inefficient. I suppose one could say that the inefficiency is a "feature" that makes the system self-limiting, curbing porn addiction. LOL

crankylinuxuser 8y ago

I figured the writing was on the wall with that whole garbage static page, along with "Disabled due to safe-mode". Of course, you had to have an account and all its bullshit to 'turn off' safe mode. Whereas, reddit, imgur, pornhub, and all of them have no safe-mode garbage. Reddit has a click-thru if you hit a sub on a work machine (and then you can bail out). But yeah, this is setting a "dead by" date probably 6 months from now. Talk about killing a property.

basic1 8y ago
I still haven't figured out how this works, Tumblr smashes the page to 1/3 the screen and displays stuff I don't care about in the center 2/3.
- sincerely 8y ago
  It confuses me too. Is there a way to turn it off?
  - dnhz 8y ago
    It’s called dashboard view, and some blogs choose to force it.
- crooked-v 8y ago
  Well, hey, now you won't have to worry about it in two weeks...
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  That's a different terribly designed setting. Safe mode is mostly 'just' forcing a login.
JBReefer 8y ago
Tumblr has been repeatedly valued at around $0, and I believe Yahoo did a huge write down at one point. I think they know this will kill the site and that's intentional. Tumblr has never been successfully monetized for various reasons, and occasionally generates bad press. It's sad - the "old internet" is quickly dying off. It basically leaves image boards, non-default Reddit, and SA. I've heard a lot of people are back on Usenet these days? Discord really doesn't do it for me.

istorical 8y ago

I have been archiving many of my favorite tumblr's for some time now, but will have to go in and refresh my downloads. Highly recommend this app called TumblThree for archiving (also TumblTwo) https://www.jzab.de/content/tumblthree https://www.jzab.de/content/tumblthree The UI is a little annoying and takes a little discovery to figure out, but the actual setup / install is painless. Edit: after reading more about the shutdown, it appears Tumblr may have their own export tools, they could be superior if you are exporting your own content, I'm not really sure.

eigenstuff 8y ago
Thank you for this! I had a pretty successful Tumblr where I posted all my crazy, colorful class notes from my math and physics classes and I've been wanting to get all those scans off there and into another place for safe back up. I had hundreds of posts on there, this will actually make it feasible to do this.
- solarkraft 8y ago
  Hey, since you mentioned it, could you tell me where to find your blog?
ourcat 8y ago
There are also many scripts out there in many languages on Github to 'archive' tumblrs. YMMV. ;)
- computer96 8y ago
  This is a good Python script for backing up Tumblr blogs or likes: https://github.com/bbolli/tumblr-utils/blob/master/tumblr_backup.md https://github.com/bbolli/tumblr-utils/blob/master/tumblr_ba... There's also this Windows app for backing up your liked posts: https://github.com/neuro-sys/tumblr-likes-downloader https://github.com/neuro-sys/tumblr-likes-downloader which makes you create an "app" to log in to your account, so it can download posts that require logging in to view.

olivermarks 8y ago

There's always demand for 'adult content' so my assumption is sites like steemit and minds are going to get a sudden population rush, especially given Steemit's monetization model, on December 18. Oath I'll assume are shuttering sites they can't data mine for marketing intel on users, and to not be associated with the terrabytes of 'adult content' they currently host...

Karrot_Kream 8y ago

For folks leaving Tumblr, the Fediverse is a great alternative. You can host your own instance if you want assurance that content will not be banned, or join one of the many existing instances that already exist around Tumblr-like and LGBT-like interests.

LeeCyriaca 8y ago

there are a lot of jokes being made along the lines of "there goes their userbase" but for me personally this is a huge loss. especially for those of us who have certain kinks, Tumblr to this day has been the only place to ever exist where women could safely express their sexuality. it allowed us to meet like-minded people, it allowed us to break the taboo and it ended the isolation that many of us felt. Tumblrs main asset has always been it's community,and I'm deathly afraid this new policy will take all of this away

rajacombinator 8y ago
This is the new reality of the internet, best get used to it. Free speech is dead.
- ajkjk 8y ago
  This seems like the opposite of free speech being dead. A website shut down and you can just... go... make or use another one, anytime you like, without having to worry about it even being illegal.
  - bredren 8y ago
    I also see this as a market opportunity for a startup to adapt / improve on tumblr and fill the void. An unexpected, and permanent content restriction on a major platform is a disruptive event.
    - Apocryphon 8y ago
      Yesterday's BitChute discussion [0] brought up the unfortunate fact that many ostensibly free-speech zone sites such as Voat and Gab just end up being havens for far right bigots and conspiracy theorists. Made me wonder if that toxic stew could be balanced if far left activists brigaded those platforms. With this story, it'd be even more amusing if amateur erotica creators and kink community people migrated from Tumblr to those places as well. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18583211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18583211

dimensi0nal 8y ago

"Porn site bans porn"

phreack 8y ago

Surprisingly, the thing I'd been using it most for, was that it's the only major social media website I know that still shows posts in chronological order.

Groxx 8y ago
The app is rather insistent about showing me the same post 20x while hiding new things though :\ I'm very sad to see chronological continuing to disappear.
msoucy 8y ago
It's gotten to the point where that's actually a selling point for networks such as Mastodon... which is silly, because it should be normal behavior.
Hard_Space 8y ago
Ironically, that has changed in the last few hours. A number of sites seem to be getting sorted randomly. Never seen it happen before.

ourcat 8y ago

This strikes me as a heck of an opportunity to create a system (with a tumblr importer) specifically replicating Tumblr, but for pr0n. "fumblr" ?

intrasight 8y ago
Given that the porn industry basically invented the monetized internet, I assume that the "opportunity" was seized long ago.
- ourcat 8y ago
  I don't think the adult industry has truly been able to simplify things as much as products like tumblr (and other social media networks.) Fetlife probably does a good job for certain 'niches'. What I mean is, all the 'tumblrees' and "their" 'content' ( so much air-quote) will want to go somewhere. En masse. Soon. Most likely in protest.
  - kinos 8y ago
    Why did you word that as if the poster didn't create the content within the blog?
    - iamdave 8y ago
      Tumblr as a platform exists on shared content, and actively measures, and provides to the user-measurements of "reblogs". In the context of this discussion, so many user account blogs that could be tagged as 'adult content' are full of reblogged sexual images that the account owner identifies with or wants to advertise as the type of sexual activity they are interested in. Many comments here are pointing out Fetlife as a refuge for some tumblr ex-pats. Speaking as a Fetlife user, it's not hard to see why the 'their' is in quotes. When you see a tumblr profile on someone's fetlife profile it's often described by the profile owner as "you can see the kind of stuff I'm into on my tumblr" with a small ratio of original content to reshared content. Either images from a movie, online porn, or just "reblog" of another tumblr user's content when not the blogger's own images that are being posted. This isn't me taking a position on adult content on tumblr, denouncing it or condoning it either way-but I think that bit of context might help answer your question. It doesn't define the entire experience for the entirety of the porographically inclined userbase, but it's relevant.

amaccuish 8y ago

This sucks. I just deleted my profile since it'll all get deleted anyway. It's hard to get out there with particular fetish interests in the gay community. It was a great way to meet some genuinely awesome people. Now all I've got is Recon, which is aimed more at dating.

largehotcoffee 8y ago

RIP Tumblr.

rmoriz 8y ago

FetLife should offer an migration assistant to Tumblr authors and collect the free business.

solarkraft 8y ago

Tumblr was a great place for porn. This is a great opportunity for a competitor to snap up the community and I wonder who it will be.

xhruso00 8y ago

I think some of the content will move to Instagram and Twitter

bluetidepro 8y ago
Instagram is extremely strict with NSFW content today because of Facebook. Twitter, however, is def more lenient with it.

bliblah 8y ago

It's a shame because there are some genuinely talented artists there that partake in NSFW art. A lot of the people I follow seem to be moving their work to pixiv and taking commissions through patreon. Some are straight up uploading porn on twitter which is funny considering it is even more public than tumblr. To be fair though, there some artists push boundaries far harder than others especially concerning the "age" of the imaginary character. However I find these groups far more tame than some fandoms of shows like Stranger Things that straight up sexualize real life kids such as Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown.

qwerty456127 8y ago

That's exactly the thing it was useful for. There was just so much beauty (as well as so much weirdness neighboring it but I didn't mind) RIP Tumblr. Anybody capable and interested please back-up and re-upload to some alternative (what are any, BTW)? I was so glad such a censorship-free place existed.

fabricexpert 8y ago

If you think you can code a tumblr clone in a weekend, this is your opportunity. You have 2 weeks, go!

qwerty456127 8y ago
It's possible to code this fast but hardly possible to host it the way it would handle the load without a million dollar invoice or to find an investor that would pay it this fast.
Laforet 8y ago
And please make it usable without a dedicated app. Over the years I have been using tumblr less and less because most templates will crash any browser should you dare to scroll down.
wukerplank 8y ago
I wonder how many people will rush for this. Even if they get it to scale, what's the business model? Or just do it like Tumblr and run on VC money as long as possible.

qwerty456127 8y ago

I wish the could just tag particular subtumblrs as NSFW or something and filter these by default. Users should be let to choose for themselves. Banning adult content is ridiculous.

msoucy 8y ago
I believe that those systems are currently in place, but either aren't considered to be "enough", or people aren't using them properly.
Laforet 8y ago
There is already forced login for tagged adult subs, as well as a quarantine mode that embed the affected subs to your timeline rather than accessible as its own subdomain. If anything this has already killed much discoverability because search engines are prevented from crawling and their in-house search is useless anyway.

bcheung 8y ago

Anyone have stats on how much of Tumblr is adult? My impression was that it is a huge percentage of it.

mrlala 8y ago
I've never been on a tumblr that wasn't adult.. Also, I believe on mobile you "had" to use their app if you wanted to see 18+ content users. So they were indirectly promoting their app with nsfw content...

BlueAThrow 8y ago

Apple is calling the shots here. Tumblr was not going to be allowed back on the app store while adult content was on the site.

jphalimi 8y ago
Isn't Reddit allowed on iOS?
- Mindwipe 8y ago
  Reddit has been removed from the app store more than once.
chipotle_coyote 8y ago
Ah, I knew I would see this hot take here! I responded elsewhere, but in short form, this is very likely far more driven by Tumblr's new corporate parents wanting to make the site friendlier to advertisers.
post_break 8y ago
Citing Kotaku "In an email a spokesperson from Tumblr clarified that the removal of adult content was not related to the app’s removal from the iOS store."
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
AngryAnt 8y ago
A guess would be that no, they weren't going back on the store without adjusting their rating to R. And obviously showing that they can keep child porn off their service.

dictum 8y ago

Even Digg didn't set out to die overnight. Come to think of it, of all decade-plus websites, Tumblr is exactly the one for whom suicide is an entirely expected ending. Moody, unique, too obscure for the mainstream but popular enough among the kind of people who would appreciate you. You were the kind to enjoy poetry and inspirational images, but those inspirational images just couldn't give you enough dopamine. You sought a higher high, and would happily do so unnoticed, until some higher-up found the hidden closet.

sparkie 8y ago
Digg's demise was due to its failure to police their content and to leave it up to the users. I remember it being a fun place, and then it became overrun by do-gooders we called the "bury brigades". Anything remotely interesting or creative got killed and you were left with press-releases from a few big media outlets. A dull news feed. Many people moved to reddit, but /r/politics is pretty much exactly what became of Digg. If reddit didn't have diversity in its sub communities (and different people moderating them), it would've probably suffered the same fate by now.
- scelerat 8y ago
  > but /r/politics is pretty much exactly what became of Digg Could you say some more about what you mean by that?
  - sparkie 8y ago
    A filtered news feed of the political left. The difference is /r/politics has a whitelist of "acceptable" domains. Essentially anything left of Lenin is OK, and anything else is deemed "far right". The bury brigades still exist in the comments.
    - torstenvl 8y ago
      Irony abounds.
    - 8y ago

elsonrodriguez 8y ago

Advertisers are being given undue influence in the evolution of our culture.

aw3c2 8y ago

Keep an eye on https://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Tumblr https://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Tumblr or join #tumbledown on EFNet to join ArchiveTeam's coordinated, collaborative effort in saving things.

jhcl 8y ago

American indecency running wild again. When does that bunch of religious extremists make a difference between social unacceptable behavior and physical lust. Go ahead with your KKK, QAnon and anti-feminist meetings but keep your tighty-whities on to avoid shocking people. What a sick bunch of religious extremists.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

therealmarv 8y ago

Any alternative from China or Russia? This adult censoring from US (even Google is doing that!) is driving me nuts as an adult European. Or anything backed on IPFS ?!

Grue3 8y ago

The real culprit needs to be called out here. Fuck apple and their puritanical crusade against porn. Anyone who appreciates NSFW content needs to boycott them.

intopieces 8y ago
Huh? How does Apple play into this?
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  Apple pulled the Tumblr iOS app after complaining to Tumblr about them hosting child pornography, not just NSFW blogs, and not seeing action being taken. As I mentioned elsewhere, Tumblr stripping adult content is very likely a move toward making their site advertiser-friendly, because Oath (their new corporate parent) does not have the tolerance for losing money that Yahoo did. I mean, yes, getting rid of all content from "female-presenting nipples" on up should technically get rid of the child porn, too, but the breadth of Tumblr's actions here make it highly unlikely this is primarily driven by getting the app back in the iOS App Store. (I mean, hell, Tumblr doesn't need an app, and it's not like Apple blocks you from surfing to porn sites on Safari.)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
urda 8y ago
Apple pulled the app after they had found child pornography on the platform, not because it has porn. Otherwise how would the suite of reddit apps (another social site with plenty of porn) exist within the Apple ecosystem? Clearly Tumblr took the nuclear option and just banned everything instead, again not Apple. Please read up on the situation more before continuing.
- Grue3 8y ago
  >Apple pulled the app after they had found child pornography on the platform, not because it has porn. They wouldn't let the app back into the app store unless they get rid of all porn. There's no reason why they would piss of most of their userbase otherwise. "Child pornography" is the classic "think of the children" misdirection, it has always been against the site rules, and the law. >How would the suite of reddit apps (another social site with plenty of porn) exist within the Apple ecosystem? They wouldn't for much longer. This is just the beginning.

zerealshadowban 8y ago

Interesting how the presentation of healthy sexuality and eroticism in US culture increasingly suffers under a joint assault by neo-puritans, radical feminists, middle-of-the-road advertisers, and gender-smashing warriors. By the gods, even at the gym the vast majority of Americans feel they must cover their body with towels when walking to/from the showers, and those who don't are eyed with suspicion. Similar trends are present in e.g. Sweden and France where the depiction of beautiful women in ads is now a socio-political problem. I wish for our cultures to look for inspiration to the Ancient Greeks' fundamental love of the human body and soul; some of which we can observe in the sculptures that have survived (not the beefy Roman copies); and some of the perspectives one may gather from surviving poetry, tales of normal nudity in social activities, and benevolent jokes about sex.

dingoegret 8y ago
You are confused between the Western myth making history in pop culture and factual history. Greek aesthetics in public art greatly favored modesty and was heavily influenced by adjacent semitic cultures. Real history is very different from the fictional romanticization in media. https://phoenicia.org/greek.html https://phoenicia.org/greek.html
awakeasleep 8y ago
"Presentation of healthy sexuality" is a pretty mixed up way to look at online pornography
- icebraining 8y ago
  Online pornography comes in many forms, particularly on Tumblr.
- jplayer01 8y ago
  This is literally the viewpoint that is the problem. Just because you don't like the kind of kinks and fetishes that other people have doesn't mean it isn't healthy or valuable. Especially on a place like tumblr, where communities are built around these sexual interests. It isn't some industry imposing artificial expectations on an unwilling populace. It's people who are genuinely into such a crazy variety of things and want to share that interest with other people. What could be more wholesome than that?

mrlala 8y ago

Did they ban HTML as well?

m-p-3 8y ago

It's like if 4chan was bought by someone who wanted to make it more family-friendly and get rid of /b/ or /s/. That will not go well.

jasonjayr 8y ago
4chan recently split SFW & NSFW boards onto separate domains ...

IkmoIkmo 8y ago

I don't really get it. Reddit can do porn and has an iOS app. A blanket ban just doesn't seem necessary, especially if it's a large part of your community and technically Tumblr isn't a particularly novel product in 2018, community is all you have.

screamingpepe 8y ago

Well, that's the end of Tumblr then. RIP.

turtle408 8y ago

As well, they turn off their half of the server fleet.

crazygringo 8y ago

Seeing as everyone seems to agree the whole point (if we're being real) of Tumblr is adult content, that there's at least some acknowledgement that there's real societal value in having a safe space for various kinds of healthy adult sexual kinks that are non-mainstream, and that with this move Tumblr will surely pull a Digg and probably disappear for all intents and purposes... ...why isn't Verizon managing to sell it to someone who wants to support that, instead of effectively shutting it down? Financially it doesn't make sense to me. If free porn sites make money, I really don't see how a porn-embracing Tumblr wouldn't do the same? Or just split the site in two automatically based on analysis of each account's contents, decide whether the "Tumblr" brand is more valuable for clean content or adult content, and sell off the adult side with or without the name. Sure splitting a site isn't technically the easiest thing, but I can't believe it wouldn't still make sense financially. Banning this much content seems like literally burning piles of money and just destroying value. Whatever happened to stockholder value... for real? How can a board approve this, or allow it to happen? Looking it up now, MindGeek owns PornHub and so many other sites... surely it would fit perfectly in their portfolio?

corvos 8y ago
4chan just split the SFW parts into 4channel for advertiser reasons, so its clearly a feasible idea
- vharuck 8y ago
  One should wait a year or so to see if 4chan's split was a good decision. That site doesn't have a history of good financial decisions.
Eridrus 8y ago
HN's reaction is snarky and amusing, but based on a biased sample of snarky anecdotes. Verizon probably has actual data on the amount of content they are planning to ban, and the amount of traffic they get. Not to say they've though all the second order effects through, but they're working from a much more informed starting point than HN's consensus.

danimal88 8y ago

If only we demanded more of the violence industry rather than the sex policing industry.

Rjevski 8y ago

So adult content is apparently immoral, but stalking their visitors by leaking their data to over 100 “partners” (according to their non compliant GDPR forced “consent” screen) is okay? Lol.

perseusprime11 8y ago

Take note, Instagram!

leppr 8y ago

> Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose. That's the big positive from this announcement. Giving ample prior warning, and even helping the transition will certainly atenuate the feeling of betrayal community members have when being ousted. I sure wish Yahoo did this during the first "advertiser cleansing", back when they acquired Tumblr. Instead, I remember the dread as I scrolled through my blog to find 5 to 10% of the carefully curated pictures on it had been censored out, with no warning whatsoever.

mimixco 8y ago

This is sad. Tumblr was one of the last few places that adults could share explicit photos. Without them, everything will be paid sites. :-(

Wowfunhappy 8y ago

I think this should be considered the original source, as opposed to the Verge article? https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/231885248-Sensitive-content https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/231885248-Sensi...

bjornstar 8y ago

They really downplayed the effect of Apple removing the tumblr app from their app store. With the tumblr app is still gone from the Apple app store for 3 weeks now, it's very hard not to see this move as being directed by Apple. I think it's disappointing that they chose to block all adult content rather than filter adult content in the iOS app. The world would be much better off without Apple dictating what we can put on our websites.

zxcvbn4038 8y ago

I worked at Tumblr up until the Verizon merger so this story drew my interest. Most of the people who work there are too young to remember Betamax but that sounds like the direction things are going. Good news is that the government of Turkey can finally stop complaining to Tumblr about all the gay porn -- they are REALLY good at finding it (Short KMB!) Seriously though Tumblr never made any money on the adult content - they refused to run advertising on it - it was questionable that the adult content brought eyeballs that stayed around for the non-adult content. It was just a matter of time before the accounting people started wondering how much less their monthly S3 bill might be without the petabytes of un-monetizable porn. Now the question is, can Nyan Cat memes and a Minecraft blog support the business and justify the merger. Maybe Justin Timberlake is still in the market?

joshstrange 8y ago
> Seriously though Tumblr never made any money on the adult content - they refused to run advertising on it I can't believe this, I only follow(ed?) NSFW blogs and I see ads and sponsored content all the time.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

rmykhajliw 8y ago

Half or more Tumblr traffic comes for adult content, without this, it's just another platform to publish your I don't even know the purpose of Tumblr now: images, thoughts ? I suppose the market for Tumblr has changed and died - Medium has replaced tumblr everywhere.

qwerty456127 8y ago

BTW isn't there a viable distributed P2P alternative perhaps? Something like Aether but without content life time limit?

t0astbread 8y ago

What even is Tumblr at this point? Who would want to blog on a platform that restricts your speech so heavily?

stevenicr 8y ago

I wonder if tumblr will keep the content available for some time after the 17th and if the API (and dashboard) will still work for blogs that have been flagged as NSFA. The main wordpress importer depends on the tumblr API to connect and pull posts and pics and such I believe. So it would be nice if that was an option for some time after the shutdown.

m-localhost 8y ago

Anybody remembers the AI generated porn? Yahoo's experimental porn filter is the basis of beaches and dunes getting flagged as adult content. https://open_nsfw.gitlab.io https://open_nsfw.gitlab.io