Tumblr has always been considered a place where adult content could be posted and viewed without too much trouble. However, recent developments have made it clear to the social media giant that it can no longer allow adult content on its platform if it wants to remain viable in the future.
The developments in question that have prompted this sudden change are that Tumblr was taken off the app store because of the fact that it was found to be host to child pornography. While Tumblr’s terms of use definitely don’t allow such a thing, the pornography managed to slip through the cracks regardless. As a result of this, Tumblr will be implementing a much stricter policy regarding adult content, and will be blocking adult themed content starting on the 17th of December.
The developments in question that have prompted this sudden change are that Tumblr was taken off the app store because of the fact that it was found to be host to child pornography. While Tumblr’s terms of use definitely don’t allow such a thing, the pornography managed to slip through the cracks regardless. As a result of this, Tumblr will be implementing a much stricter policy regarding adult content, and will be blocking adult themed content starting on the 17th of December.
"Today, we’re taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions).", said Jeff D’Onofrio, CEO of Tumblr, in a blog post. Adding further, "Let’s first be unequivocal about something that should not be confused with today’s policy change: posting anything that is harmful to minors, including child pornography, is abhorrent and has no place in our community". He further explained, "We’ve always had and always will have a zero tolerance policy for this type of content. To this end, we continuously invest in the enforcement of this policy, including industry-standard machine monitoring, a growing team of human moderators, and user tools that make it easy to report abuse."It is fair to say that a move like this was inevitable. The status quo often needs to be maintained especially in terms of community management, so a social media platform that allows users to post adult themed content was not going to get very far. In spite of all of this, Tumblr managed to become one of the biggest social media app in the world, one of the few top platforms that are not owned by Facebook. This will perhaps allow the platform to have a more widespread appeal, since most users did not use it for adult purposes anyway. It could also enhance the platforms global appeal, especially since there are cases where the site ended up getting banned because of the fact that it displayed adult themed content.
Related: Cyber bullying on the rise as the use of social media increasesTumblr has stated that they are going to use similar algorithms to make sure that no adult themed content makes it onto the site. Since the algorithms will be stricter, it seems unlikely that anything would manage to slip through the cracks this time.
