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I thought Tumblr's 'adult content' ban was due to the Apple appstore refusing to host the app? If not why would Tumblr ever make that decision? There were so ma

by keyle 8y ago

I thought Tumblr's 'adult content' ban was due to the Apple appstore refusing to host the app? If not why would Tumblr ever make that decision? There were so many other ways to approach it - shadow banning for example.

sarcasmic 8y ago
Tumblr's adult content ban was likely a last-ditch effort by Tumblr, encouraged by owner Verizon, to salvage some business value out a hectic social (re-)blogging site that seemed like a questionable fit even for the previous buyer Yahoo. Verizon embarked on an ambitious effort to be a force in online content and display ads, so that they'd produce worthwhile content that would contribute to them running a bigger and more successful ad network. They bought AOL and its magazines to make it happen, and a few years later they acquired the content arm of Yahoo when Yahoo pivoted to an investment holding company. Porn blogs were a big and visible part of Tumblr, but Tumblr's unwillingness to use coarse filtering meant that they were poorly policed. Porn blogs were overwhelmingly run by bots and hosted stolen content, they'd spam-follow unrelated accounts to game search engines, and they'd generally be a nuisance in every way, despite attracting a fair amount of viewers. The Apple App Store fiasco gave a convenient pretext to roll out the coarse filter to whack porn blogs and make the site more palatable for advertisers, but the collateral damage also affected erotica, art, sex-positive communities, and various LGBTQ communities. Meanwhile, ads on Tumblr have gotten a slight bit more frequent since the Yahoo days, but hardly any more relevant or less low-rent.
eveningcoffee 8y ago
Tumblr is dead anyway for me because of their faulty and illegal GDPR support.
- kleiba 8y ago
  Care to elaborate?
  - dylz 8y ago
    Their opt out of marketing tracking box has been a meme because you have to manually click hundreds of checkboxes in a very small window on every pageload to not be tracked, accidentally closing the box or hitting accept once will enable all of them, each one you untick increases your load time as it fakes a progress counter to "opt you out", if you choose to opt out they'll re-prompt you every time you load the page Additional bonus is that you'll need adblock disabled and third party cookies enabled and all tracking protection turned off to opt out.
  - eveningcoffee 8y ago
    Foundational Partners Oath works with select partners that process your data to provide significant functionality for our products and services. For more information about these partners, and to understand and manage their use of your data, see: Google (Privacy Policy) Amazon (Privacy Policy) Facebook (Privacy Policy) Teads (Privacy Policy) Nielsen (Privacy Policy) You cannot turn off Facebook tracking for example. This is in violation of GDPR because it is not possible to access essential functionality without tracking. This illegal implementation is even worse than before because it now forces me to explicitly agree with the tracking. It essentially means that I could not access Tumblr anymore.
    - kleiba 8y ago
      It essentially means that I could not access Tumblr anymore. But that's actually okay, no? I mean, you can make a decision what's more important to you...
      - eveningcoffee 8y ago
        Yes, this is not my tragedy.
zimpenfish 8y ago
> I thought Tumblr's 'adult content' ban was due to the Apple appstore refusing to host the app? No - that ban was because of child pornography, not adult content. Tumblr were apparently working on the adult content ban well before that happened; consensus being that it's likely to avoid problems with SESTA-FOSTA[1]. [1] http://digg.com/2018/tumblr-explicit-adult-content-policy-ban-december http://digg.com/2018/tumblr-explicit-adult-content-policy-ba...

by keyle 8y ago

sarcasmic 8y ago

Tumblr's adult content ban was likely a last-ditch effort by Tumblr, encouraged by owner Verizon, to salvage some business value out a hectic social (re-)blogging site that seemed like a questionable fit even for the previous buyer Yahoo. Verizon embarked on an ambitious effort to be a force in online content and display ads, so that they'd produce worthwhile content that would contribute to them running a bigger and more successful ad network. They bought AOL and its magazines to make it happen, and a few years later they acquired the content arm of Yahoo when Yahoo pivoted to an investment holding company. Porn blogs were a big and visible part of Tumblr, but Tumblr's unwillingness to use coarse filtering meant that they were poorly policed. Porn blogs were overwhelmingly run by bots and hosted stolen content, they'd spam-follow unrelated accounts to game search engines, and they'd generally be a nuisance in every way, despite attracting a fair amount of viewers. The Apple App Store fiasco gave a convenient pretext to roll out the coarse filter to whack porn blogs and make the site more palatable for advertisers, but the collateral damage also affected erotica, art, sex-positive communities, and various LGBTQ communities. Meanwhile, ads on Tumblr have gotten a slight bit more frequent since the Yahoo days, but hardly any more relevant or less low-rent.

eveningcoffee 8y ago

Tumblr is dead anyway for me because of their faulty and illegal GDPR support.

kleiba 8y ago
Care to elaborate?
- dylz 8y ago
  Their opt out of marketing tracking box has been a meme because you have to manually click hundreds of checkboxes in a very small window on every pageload to not be tracked, accidentally closing the box or hitting accept once will enable all of them, each one you untick increases your load time as it fakes a progress counter to "opt you out", if you choose to opt out they'll re-prompt you every time you load the page Additional bonus is that you'll need adblock disabled and third party cookies enabled and all tracking protection turned off to opt out.
- eveningcoffee 8y ago
  Foundational Partners Oath works with select partners that process your data to provide significant functionality for our products and services. For more information about these partners, and to understand and manage their use of your data, see: Google (Privacy Policy) Amazon (Privacy Policy) Facebook (Privacy Policy) Teads (Privacy Policy) Nielsen (Privacy Policy) You cannot turn off Facebook tracking for example. This is in violation of GDPR because it is not possible to access essential functionality without tracking. This illegal implementation is even worse than before because it now forces me to explicitly agree with the tracking. It essentially means that I could not access Tumblr anymore.
  - kleiba 8y ago
    It essentially means that I could not access Tumblr anymore. But that's actually okay, no? I mean, you can make a decision what's more important to you...
    - eveningcoffee 8y ago
      Yes, this is not my tragedy.

zimpenfish 8y ago

> I thought Tumblr's 'adult content' ban was due to the Apple appstore refusing to host the app? No - that ban was because of child pornography, not adult content. Tumblr were apparently working on the adult content ban well before that happened; consensus being that it's likely to avoid problems with SESTA-FOSTA[1]. [1] http://digg.com/2018/tumblr-explicit-adult-content-policy-ban-december http://digg.com/2018/tumblr-explicit-adult-content-policy-ba...