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MindGeek should buy Tumblr and allow adult content again. Tumblr's success was that it was an adult space that wasn't strictly pornography. It was a "cool sex"

MindGeek should buy Tumblr and allow adult content again. Tumblr's success was that it was an adult space that wasn't strictly pornography. It was a "cool sex" to PornHub's "hot sex".

parker_mountain 3y ago
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Tumblr allowing adult content would probably get it removed from app stores. Only a few major apps get away with it, and when they're gone, they're gone.
- Bud 3y ago
  Tumblr did fine before app stores ever existed, and could do perfectly well without them now as well. Web is enough.
  - radlad 3y ago
    Before app stores existed, smartphones weren't used the way they are today. Consumer habits have shifted... you'd be missing out on a HUGE part of the market.
    - h0l0cube 3y ago
      Missing out on a huge part of the market is comfortable territory for Tumblr
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - Bud 3y ago
      That simply doesn't matter. Tumblr just needs to succeed in ANY slice of the market it can find. A small slice would do nicely. The best bet would be the slice it originally appealed to, with its original kinds of content, in the original medium it was in.
chimeracoder 3y ago
> MindGeek should buy Tumblr and allow adult content again. MindGeek isn't interested in new investments allowing independent content creation. MindGeek has been the target of active - and successful - campaigns from anti-pornography groups with explicit religious motivation (Exodus Cry, Morality in Media, etc., mostly funded by right-wing evangelicals). Those groups are the reason that Xtube shut down in 2021, and that Pornhub removed all independent content a couple of months later. Those same groups are also behind the new "age verification" laws in a number of states, which are the reason that accessing many big-name tube websites (both from MindGeek and other properties) now requires uploading your drivers' license along with biometric face scans, even when viewed from states which don't have such laws on the books. There's been a war on pornography on the Internet for the last several years, and the anti-pornography groups have won nearly every battle, in part because the only opposition has come from sex workers, who have very little lobbying influence. For some reason, most digital rights or general First Amendment advocacy groups have paid very little attention. If you wrote on HN in 2017 suggesting the possibility of a total ban on pornography on the Internet within a few years, you'd have been dismissed outright. But we're actually pretty close to a de facto ban on pornography on the Internet. Very few websites still allow independent creators to upload pornography. Most of the ones that were around in 2017 either are dead, no longer allow pornography (Tumblr, Imgur), heavily restrict its visibility (Reddit), or only allow it from "verified creators", which limits it to commercial production (Pornhub). Even self-hosting is going to become harder, as these groups are shifting their focus towards pressuring payment platforms and hosting providers to drop customers who produce sexual content. Will pornography be literally banned on the Internet in a few years? Probably not. But will it be extremely difficult to either find or post sexual imagery or nudity within that timeframe? Probably - and so far, the anti-porn activists have actually been operating ahead of their own schedule.
- gspencley 3y ago
  While I don't disagree with the bulk of your comment, it's worth noting that PornHub / MindGeek didn't just shoot themselves in the foot but hurt the entire industry when there were numerous videos of missing teens and underage content found on their site. I say this as someone who ran an adult website for 18 years, in Canada, until suddenly our bank informed us that they were closing our commercial accounts and we couldn't find a single other bank or credit union in this country that would take our business despite a pristine 18 year track record. The only thing that had changed was the MindGeek scandal. Maybe the media misrepresented it, maybe the content issues were fabricated by "anti-pornography" groups. But one day everything is fine, the next day MindGeek (a Canadian company) is in the news and the next day we're shut down despite having done nothing wrong. It's hard for me to scapegoat conservatives and anti-porn groups when they were WAY more vocal and active when I first started my business (back in 2004 this was when the George W Bush administration was prosecuting obscenity for the first time in decades, and passing USC 18 2557). By 2022 they had virtually gone away. Then MindGeek was caught allowing some some really shady shit on PornHub. Also this was just a year or two after the Girls Do Porn scandal (Google it if you're unaware). Those girls suing those assholes for sexual abuse and contractual misrepresentation was not "anti-porn groups." So my take, as a former business owner in the industry, was that it took a few public scandals and scares for the banks and corporate America to go "hmm... maybe we were wrong to get too liberal with this stuff." Some of that may have been fueled by the anti-porn lobby .. but if MindGeek had kept their nose clean it likely wouldn't have worked.
evanelias 3y ago
> Tumblr's success was that it was an adult space that wasn't strictly pornography. This is a common talking point here, but it just isn't historically accurate in terms of absolute numbers. Tumblr was most successful in 2011-2012. It started getting huge in 2010 in large part due to having built-in photo and video support, at a time when Twitter didn't have these, and Instagram and Pinterest were still both tiny. Tumblr also offered built-in reblog functionality before Twitter had built-in retweeting. For a little while there, Tumblr was a mainstream social network -- certainly a bit edgier and more liberal than most competitors, but still mainstream enough that many major brands had a Tumblr presence right alongside their Facebook and Twitter icons. Adult content was definitely present, but it was a single-digit percentage of posts at the time of Tumblr's peak historical traffic levels. A lot of those mainstream users started to decamp to Instagram and Pinterest after that point, depending on their personal use-case. That adult content percentage definitely rose over time, but timing-wise that coincided with total traffic decreasing, not increasing. It also scared off the brands, whose advertising dollars were sorely needed to achieve sustainability for the business. So to me, attempting to attribute Tumblr's "success" to adult content just seems way off-base. Source: I was personally responsible for a decent chunk of Tumblr's scalability and capacity planning for several years.
- photomatt 3y ago
  I think this is a pretty fair assessment.
- jchw 3y ago
  Seems like a reasonable take but I do have one comment: > Adult content was definitely present, but it was a single-digit percentage of posts at the time of Tumblr's peak historical traffic levels. Single-digit percentage is a lot for adult content. I have to imagine that's a larger share of percentage than Twitter has ever had for adult content.
  - evanelias 3y ago
    That's expected given Twitter leans more towards text content. The proportion of Tumblr posts that are images or video has always been much higher than Twitter's. Twitter didn't even have built-in photo posts until mid 2011, and even then it was through a third-party integration with Photobucket for the first year. Images weren't shown inline in the Twitter timeline feed until late 2013! Meanwhile direct video upload was added even later than that.
tennisflyi 3y ago
Good and subtle distinction. Thanks.

MindGeek should buy Tumblr and allow adult content again. Tumblr's success was that it was an adult space that wasn't strictly pornography. It was a "cool sex" to PornHub's "hot sex".

parker_mountain 3y ago

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Tumblr allowing adult content would probably get it removed from app stores. Only a few major apps get away with it, and when they're gone, they're gone.

Bud 3y ago
Tumblr did fine before app stores ever existed, and could do perfectly well without them now as well. Web is enough.
- radlad 3y ago
  Before app stores existed, smartphones weren't used the way they are today. Consumer habits have shifted... you'd be missing out on a HUGE part of the market.
  - h0l0cube 3y ago
    Missing out on a huge part of the market is comfortable territory for Tumblr
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - Bud 3y ago
    That simply doesn't matter. Tumblr just needs to succeed in ANY slice of the market it can find. A small slice would do nicely. The best bet would be the slice it originally appealed to, with its original kinds of content, in the original medium it was in.

chimeracoder 3y ago

> MindGeek should buy Tumblr and allow adult content again. MindGeek isn't interested in new investments allowing independent content creation. MindGeek has been the target of active - and successful - campaigns from anti-pornography groups with explicit religious motivation (Exodus Cry, Morality in Media, etc., mostly funded by right-wing evangelicals). Those groups are the reason that Xtube shut down in 2021, and that Pornhub removed all independent content a couple of months later. Those same groups are also behind the new "age verification" laws in a number of states, which are the reason that accessing many big-name tube websites (both from MindGeek and other properties) now requires uploading your drivers' license along with biometric face scans, even when viewed from states which don't have such laws on the books. There's been a war on pornography on the Internet for the last several years, and the anti-pornography groups have won nearly every battle, in part because the only opposition has come from sex workers, who have very little lobbying influence. For some reason, most digital rights or general First Amendment advocacy groups have paid very little attention. If you wrote on HN in 2017 suggesting the possibility of a total ban on pornography on the Internet within a few years, you'd have been dismissed outright. But we're actually pretty close to a de facto ban on pornography on the Internet. Very few websites still allow independent creators to upload pornography. Most of the ones that were around in 2017 either are dead, no longer allow pornography (Tumblr, Imgur), heavily restrict its visibility (Reddit), or only allow it from "verified creators", which limits it to commercial production (Pornhub). Even self-hosting is going to become harder, as these groups are shifting their focus towards pressuring payment platforms and hosting providers to drop customers who produce sexual content. Will pornography be literally banned on the Internet in a few years? Probably not. But will it be extremely difficult to either find or post sexual imagery or nudity within that timeframe? Probably - and so far, the anti-porn activists have actually been operating ahead of their own schedule.

gspencley 3y ago
While I don't disagree with the bulk of your comment, it's worth noting that PornHub / MindGeek didn't just shoot themselves in the foot but hurt the entire industry when there were numerous videos of missing teens and underage content found on their site. I say this as someone who ran an adult website for 18 years, in Canada, until suddenly our bank informed us that they were closing our commercial accounts and we couldn't find a single other bank or credit union in this country that would take our business despite a pristine 18 year track record. The only thing that had changed was the MindGeek scandal. Maybe the media misrepresented it, maybe the content issues were fabricated by "anti-pornography" groups. But one day everything is fine, the next day MindGeek (a Canadian company) is in the news and the next day we're shut down despite having done nothing wrong. It's hard for me to scapegoat conservatives and anti-porn groups when they were WAY more vocal and active when I first started my business (back in 2004 this was when the George W Bush administration was prosecuting obscenity for the first time in decades, and passing USC 18 2557). By 2022 they had virtually gone away. Then MindGeek was caught allowing some some really shady shit on PornHub. Also this was just a year or two after the Girls Do Porn scandal (Google it if you're unaware). Those girls suing those assholes for sexual abuse and contractual misrepresentation was not "anti-porn groups." So my take, as a former business owner in the industry, was that it took a few public scandals and scares for the banks and corporate America to go "hmm... maybe we were wrong to get too liberal with this stuff." Some of that may have been fueled by the anti-porn lobby .. but if MindGeek had kept their nose clean it likely wouldn't have worked.

evanelias 3y ago

> Tumblr's success was that it was an adult space that wasn't strictly pornography. This is a common talking point here, but it just isn't historically accurate in terms of absolute numbers. Tumblr was most successful in 2011-2012. It started getting huge in 2010 in large part due to having built-in photo and video support, at a time when Twitter didn't have these, and Instagram and Pinterest were still both tiny. Tumblr also offered built-in reblog functionality before Twitter had built-in retweeting. For a little while there, Tumblr was a mainstream social network -- certainly a bit edgier and more liberal than most competitors, but still mainstream enough that many major brands had a Tumblr presence right alongside their Facebook and Twitter icons. Adult content was definitely present, but it was a single-digit percentage of posts at the time of Tumblr's peak historical traffic levels. A lot of those mainstream users started to decamp to Instagram and Pinterest after that point, depending on their personal use-case. That adult content percentage definitely rose over time, but timing-wise that coincided with total traffic decreasing, not increasing. It also scared off the brands, whose advertising dollars were sorely needed to achieve sustainability for the business. So to me, attempting to attribute Tumblr's "success" to adult content just seems way off-base. Source: I was personally responsible for a decent chunk of Tumblr's scalability and capacity planning for several years.

photomatt 3y ago
I think this is a pretty fair assessment.
jchw 3y ago
Seems like a reasonable take but I do have one comment: > Adult content was definitely present, but it was a single-digit percentage of posts at the time of Tumblr's peak historical traffic levels. Single-digit percentage is a lot for adult content. I have to imagine that's a larger share of percentage than Twitter has ever had for adult content.
- evanelias 3y ago
  That's expected given Twitter leans more towards text content. The proportion of Tumblr posts that are images or video has always been much higher than Twitter's. Twitter didn't even have built-in photo posts until mid 2011, and even then it was through a third-party integration with Photobucket for the first year. Images weren't shown inline in the Twitter timeline feed until late 2013! Meanwhile direct video upload was added even later than that.

tennisflyi 3y ago

Good and subtle distinction. Thanks.