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> They are not removing every single nipple. It's worth taking care to distinguish what's being done from what the new policy is. The policy exempts artistic,

> They are not removing every single nipple. It's worth taking care to distinguish what's being done from what the new policy is. The policy exempts artistic, political, and some other non-erotic uses of nudity, which is good to point out. But so far, the actual outcome is that nudity is being flagged and removed with no regard for context (or, say, the difference between a human and a statue). Some of it is being restored on appeal some of the time, but that's very different from "not removed". Admittedly it's quite hard to draw a specific conclusion about how non-sexual nudity is being handled, since what's being removed is basically the random output of an untrained classifier. (Which, incidentally, leaves all of their users on uncertain ground.) But the examples of many other websites with similar rules suggest a major chilling affect on ostensibly approved content, either because it's not restored or because takedown-and-restore patterns prevent normal engagement with material.

dahart 8y ago
Agreed. And I don’t know the details of what is actually being done to remove porn, but I assume it’s an implementation detail that is temporary, has some problems (which Tumblr acknowledged), and is being worked on. The policy - the goal - is what’s important, and what I was referring to, not today’s rollout hiccups. The exaggeration in the above comment and in the article are what I’m reacting to. Tumblr is not intending to remove “every single nipple”, they are taking down porn, which has and always will have some gray areas at the edges. The hyperbole and exaggeration that they’re intending to ban any and all nudity, when they’re not, weakens the arguments against Tumblr. It’s not like any of this discussion will change Tumblr’s decision, but if people want to make a point of criticizing their decision, the strongest arguments will show why their stated policy is bad, not put up a strawman that Tumblr is trying to censor socially acceptable nudity when they’ve already stated that’s not their goal.
- freeone3000 8y ago
  Right. So "artistic" nipples are fine (what is art?), as are breastfeeding nipples, nipples after several procedures are fine, and of course, animal nipples are okay, as well as male-presenting nipples. We've seen in the past "no nipples some exceptions" from Facebook, and if enforcement there is any indication, I'm not convinced there will be a practical difference.
- Bartweiss 8y ago
  > Tumblr is not intending to remove “every single nipple”, they are taking down porn, which has and always will have some gray areas at the edges.The hyperbole and exaggeration that they’re intending to ban any and all nudity, when they’re not, weakens the arguments against Tumblr. I don't think this represents Tumblr's statement accurately. The policy bans all adult content not meeting a small list of exceptions, not just porn plus ambiguous edge cases. The ban offers no exemptions for educational content, and its health and reproduction exemptions are limited to nipples - all genitalia outside of art and political content is apparently banned. Female-presenting toplessness is only permitted under narrow conditions. This is not a small difference. A health-class video of a birth is banned. NYC's Outdoor Topless Fiction Appreciation Society couldn't post pictures of legal, non-sexual toplessness in Central Park. As written, National Geographic photos of tribes which are regularly topless are banned. (They might be news, but not "newsworthy speech".) It's not "every single nipple", agreed, but there's no attempt at all to limit this to porn. Tumblr is trying to censor socially acceptable nudity - not all of it, but their stated goal includes several things which are socially acceptable. > it’s an implementation detail that is temporary, has some problems (which Tumblr acknowledged), and is being worked on. The policy - the goal - is what’s important, and what I was referring to, not today’s rollout hiccups... a strawman that Tumblr is trying to censor socially acceptable nudity when they’ve already stated that’s not their goal. Here, I think we disagree less on theory than on faith in Tumblr(/Oath/Verizon) engineering, and so I suppose the matter will be settled by fact eventually. What follows is just an outline of my current thinking. I expect they'll eventually get an implementation which doesn't flag pictures at near-random, yes. But I expect they will never get past a state where any nudity less famous than David or Phan Thi Kim Phuc will be flagged and require a cumbersome human approval. Accounts focused on clearly-permitted nudity like Femen protests or breastfeeding positivity will end up banned for repeated flags and need human un-banning, if that process even exists reliably. All prior evidence from Tumblr says that simple, well-documented bugs are likely to go unfixed for years, and "don't take down certain types of nudity" is not simple. And if I may be permitted some cynicism, I expect that both Apple's action and Oath's apparent business plans will make false positives far more appealing than false negatives. If nudity of all types is restricted in practice, and I fully expect that outcome, then the stated goal is only evidence against malice. This obviously isn't a criminal matter, but the culpability framework is helpful. I agree that the general censorship of nudity was not 'purposeful', but I think the initial rollout was either 'negligent' or 'reckless' and running the planned full takedown on the 17th using the same algorithm would be 'knowing'. Past a certain point, it's not really worth discussing intent because everyone involved ought to be aware that their actions couldn't possibly fulfill that intent.

dahart 8y ago

Agreed. And I don’t know the details of what is actually being done to remove porn, but I assume it’s an implementation detail that is temporary, has some problems (which Tumblr acknowledged), and is being worked on. The policy - the goal - is what’s important, and what I was referring to, not today’s rollout hiccups. The exaggeration in the above comment and in the article are what I’m reacting to. Tumblr is not intending to remove “every single nipple”, they are taking down porn, which has and always will have some gray areas at the edges. The hyperbole and exaggeration that they’re intending to ban any and all nudity, when they’re not, weakens the arguments against Tumblr. It’s not like any of this discussion will change Tumblr’s decision, but if people want to make a point of criticizing their decision, the strongest arguments will show why their stated policy is bad, not put up a strawman that Tumblr is trying to censor socially acceptable nudity when they’ve already stated that’s not their goal.

freeone3000 8y ago
Right. So "artistic" nipples are fine (what is art?), as are breastfeeding nipples, nipples after several procedures are fine, and of course, animal nipples are okay, as well as male-presenting nipples. We've seen in the past "no nipples some exceptions" from Facebook, and if enforcement there is any indication, I'm not convinced there will be a practical difference.
Bartweiss 8y ago
> Tumblr is not intending to remove “every single nipple”, they are taking down porn, which has and always will have some gray areas at the edges.The hyperbole and exaggeration that they’re intending to ban any and all nudity, when they’re not, weakens the arguments against Tumblr. I don't think this represents Tumblr's statement accurately. The policy bans all adult content not meeting a small list of exceptions, not just porn plus ambiguous edge cases. The ban offers no exemptions for educational content, and its health and reproduction exemptions are limited to nipples - all genitalia outside of art and political content is apparently banned. Female-presenting toplessness is only permitted under narrow conditions. This is not a small difference. A health-class video of a birth is banned. NYC's Outdoor Topless Fiction Appreciation Society couldn't post pictures of legal, non-sexual toplessness in Central Park. As written, National Geographic photos of tribes which are regularly topless are banned. (They might be news, but not "newsworthy speech".) It's not "every single nipple", agreed, but there's no attempt at all to limit this to porn. Tumblr is trying to censor socially acceptable nudity - not all of it, but their stated goal includes several things which are socially acceptable. > it’s an implementation detail that is temporary, has some problems (which Tumblr acknowledged), and is being worked on. The policy - the goal - is what’s important, and what I was referring to, not today’s rollout hiccups... a strawman that Tumblr is trying to censor socially acceptable nudity when they’ve already stated that’s not their goal. Here, I think we disagree less on theory than on faith in Tumblr(/Oath/Verizon) engineering, and so I suppose the matter will be settled by fact eventually. What follows is just an outline of my current thinking. I expect they'll eventually get an implementation which doesn't flag pictures at near-random, yes. But I expect they will never get past a state where any nudity less famous than David or Phan Thi Kim Phuc will be flagged and require a cumbersome human approval. Accounts focused on clearly-permitted nudity like Femen protests or breastfeeding positivity will end up banned for repeated flags and need human un-banning, if that process even exists reliably. All prior evidence from Tumblr says that simple, well-documented bugs are likely to go unfixed for years, and "don't take down certain types of nudity" is not simple. And if I may be permitted some cynicism, I expect that both Apple's action and Oath's apparent business plans will make false positives far more appealing than false negatives. If nudity of all types is restricted in practice, and I fully expect that outcome, then the stated goal is only evidence against malice. This obviously isn't a criminal matter, but the culpability framework is helpful. I agree that the general censorship of nudity was not 'purposeful', but I think the initial rollout was either 'negligent' or 'reckless' and running the planned full takedown on the 17th using the same algorithm would be 'knowing'. Past a certain point, it's not really worth discussing intent because everyone involved ought to be aware that their actions couldn't possibly fulfill that intent.