Tumblr Cancelled Porn, So Users Cancelled Tumblr

Justin Kirkland
Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

From Esquire

In the words of the philosopher Monique, "See, when you do clownery, the clown comes back to bite." In December, social media site Tumblr responded to allegations of child porn being shared on its platform by announcing a ban on all "adult content," instead of, you know, just doing a better job of stopping child pornography. Predictably, people were not happy because Tumblr isn't a place where you blog for fun-it's a place where you can curate your porn into a singular feed. This is America, Tumblr!

Ever since Tumblr's puritanical overhaul, the site has now seen about a 30 percent decline in traffic. That number is likely not just users looking for a well-developed porn platform either.

Following the announcement, some users promised they'd quit Tumblr, stating that the policing of content wasn't just a damper on their experience, but an infringement on how they use the site. The botched revamp has gotten negative feedback from a number of users, ranging from artists whose work has been flagged as porn, to everyday users who have even had a ring photo mistakenly flagged. The whole thing is a mess.

By the site's standards, adult content is defined as follows:

Adult content primarily includes photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content-including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations-that depicts sex acts.

The whole Sex-versus-Art debate is a conversation for a different time, but the fact that an automated system flags a Lord of the Rings GIF and calls it a violation of, what exactly? Well, that all seems a little suspect. But there you go, Tumblr. You took the nookie away from the good people of the world, and the world showed you exactly what it thought in return. Perhaps if the site had been more vigilant with regards to stopping child pornography to begin with, we could have all gone on with our lives and buried the Tumblr app behind a group called "Finances" on our iPhones, just as God intended it to be.

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