Tumblr Will Now Allow Nudity But Not Explicit Sex (theverge.com) 45
Tumblr has made an update it hinted at in September, changing its rules to allow nudity -- but not sexually explicit images -- on the platform. The Verge reports: The company updated its community guidelines earlier today, laying out a set of rules that stops short of its earlier permissive attitude toward sexuality but that formally allows a wider range of imagery. "We now welcome a broader range of expression, creativity, and art on Tumblr, including content depicting the human form (yes, that includes the naked human form). So, even if your creations contain nudity, mature subject matter, or sexual themes, you can now share them on Tumblr using the appropriate Community Label," the post says. "Visual depictions of sexually explicit acts remain off-limits on Tumblr."
A help center post and the community guidelines offer a little more detail. They say that "text, images, and videos that contain nudity, offensive language, sexual themes, or mature subject matter" is allowed on Tumblr, but "visual depictions of sexually explicit acts (or content with an overt focus on genitalia)" aren't. There's an exception for "historically significant art that you may find in a mainstream museum and which depicts sex acts -- such as from India's Sunga Empire," although it must be labeled with a mature content or "sexual themes" tag so that users can filter it from their dashboards.
"Nudity and other kinds of adult material are generally welcome. We're not here to judge your art, we just ask that you add a Community Label to your mature content so that people can choose to filter it out of their Dashboard if they prefer," say the community guidelines. However, users can't post links or ads to "adult-oriented affiliate networks," they can't advertise "escort or erotic services," and they can't post content that "promotes pedophilia," including "sexually suggestive" content with images of children. On December 17th, 2018, Tumblr permanently banned adult content from its platform. The site was owned by Verizon at the time and later sold to WordPress.com owner Automattic, which largely maintained the ban "in large part because internet infrastructure services -- like payment processors and Apple's iOS App Store -- typically frown on explicit adult content," reports The Verge.
A help center post and the community guidelines offer a little more detail. They say that "text, images, and videos that contain nudity, offensive language, sexual themes, or mature subject matter" is allowed on Tumblr, but "visual depictions of sexually explicit acts (or content with an overt focus on genitalia)" aren't. There's an exception for "historically significant art that you may find in a mainstream museum and which depicts sex acts -- such as from India's Sunga Empire," although it must be labeled with a mature content or "sexual themes" tag so that users can filter it from their dashboards.
"Nudity and other kinds of adult material are generally welcome. We're not here to judge your art, we just ask that you add a Community Label to your mature content so that people can choose to filter it out of their Dashboard if they prefer," say the community guidelines. However, users can't post links or ads to "adult-oriented affiliate networks," they can't advertise "escort or erotic services," and they can't post content that "promotes pedophilia," including "sexually suggestive" content with images of children. On December 17th, 2018, Tumblr permanently banned adult content from its platform. The site was owned by Verizon at the time and later sold to WordPress.com owner Automattic, which largely maintained the ban "in large part because internet infrastructure services -- like payment processors and Apple's iOS App Store -- typically frown on explicit adult content," reports The Verge.
Woohoo! (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Just in time for No Nut November.
Well... except for all the nuts running in the mid-term elections on 11/8 -- or did you mean something else? :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Why? Are you having trouble finding other places to put your explicit materials?
Too fucking late (Score:1)
Used to keep a blog there. Didn't even post nudity there, just had bathing suit or risque pics they slammed down on. They were moderating like it was 1899. Their puritan standards already drove me and many others off. Already found a new blog home. Won't be coming back.
Re:Too fucking late (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, people are assholes.If you allow X, people will try to post X plus a little bit more
Re: Too fucking late (Score:3)
You can either spend a crap ton moderating guys going by RightwingNutjob to make sure the moniker has its emphasis on the first bit and and not the second, or you can collect revenue from people posting under their real, verified by credit card payment, names and not spend a penny sniffing out naughty words or naughty bits.
The latter arrangement is also known as web hosting.
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty much. And if you moderate too much, you will seriously cut down on your user population. On the other hand, you can do measured responses, make it clear that everybody going over the legal boundaries _will_ get reported to law enforcement and only warn people for smaller stuff so they can actually find out were the boundaries are. Of course, if your primary targeted user population is assholes, then there is no way to keep things under control if you want to stay in business. Just not possible.
Re: (Score:2)
Firstly, this censorship started because the US government said schoolgirls had to be protected. A measured and socially responsible idea but no-one can afford to police all the sexting, so the answer was to remove all bare breasts.
That problem still remains so it is likely that Tumblr will reverse this decision (for reasons you've just explained) or be forced to reverse it by "think of the children" activists demanding that children be 'protected' from the truth.
Re:Too fucking late (Score:4, Informative)
How do you even decide that?
Who even decides that is another question. I took an American friend into a thermal bath in Austria, he instantly got visibly uncomfortable with the requirement to be nude in the sauna and I didn't even consider that idea until I saw him actively trying to not look at naked people. Naturally we gave up on that idea.
Different people have different sensibilities. What one sees as explicit another sees as completely tame. Services like Instagram are insane to the point of not allowing the presentation of nipples (arbitrarily) which leads to a lot of photoshopping nipples out when someone is wearing anything remotely see-through. And yet you go to a typical European beach and there's breasts out everywhere and no one gives it a second thought.
Re: (Score:3)
Pretty much. The problem with the puritan mind-set is not that others sexualize everything. It is the _Puritans_ themselves that sexualize everything and then cannot deal with the results. Bare breasts? Nobody really cares much in Europe. But the US? The sky is falling! And that is the actual problem.
It is a more general problem though: Because unsavory religious characters of all colors always want to restrict their fellow human beings with rules as strict and as they can get away with, they run into these
Re: (Score:2)
Well, my take is they found out what their customers actually want and that woke crap is not going to cut it. Probably far too late, as usual. Their statistics must be looking really bad for them to make that move.
This won't save them. (Score:1, Flamebait)
Tumblr died the day they went full puritan.
There's no coming back.
Pretty much just a zombie service now.
Re: (Score:2)
God doesn't particularly have a problem with 12 year olds procreating. Doesn't bring it up at all in his book. That's an evolution of man and modern (really modern) morality. And that's fine. Evolution in society is just as important as biology. If we were spear-bearing hunter gatherers on the plains, procreation early would be very important. We're not, and it isn't. The protection of the individual is now paramount, and that includes preserving options for the future.
Re: (Score:1)
IT worked, and so we're stuck with it.
At least during the dinosaurs reign the penis was invented so we could ALL have some fun.
Though the females didn't get a clit until the Rodents.
Re: (Score:2)
Though the females didn't get a clit until the Rodents.
From what I've heard, Republican females don't have them
Re: (Score:1)
never heard of one breathing hard either so...
Re: (Score:2)
You aren't doing it right.
This is gonna go downhill fast (Score:2, Offtopic)
And with Musk starting to tweet right-wing conspiracy theory links? Uggghhhhhhhh.... this could go bad for him really, reeeaally quickly.
I seriously hope he pulls back from this, but if this is an indication of where he's going, it's all downhill from here on. He'll attract a right-wing crowd, that;'s for sure. They'll absolutely love him. But there simply a
Re: (Score:3)
Just casually observing what the young people are doing these days, it makes me proud. We are not going to be living in a world, hopefully, where the only accepted body norms are those that drive traffic to web sites. We are t
Re: (Score:3)
It's not that people are necessarily opposed to the right wing in general, just the current anti-democracy phase that they've got right now. I mean, Trump wasn't really even a Republican and championed all sorts of ideas that weren't on the Republican platform or which had been dumped decades before, and I really find it difficult to really call them Republicans; it's just like if a bunch of people proudly proclaimed Rock and Roll Forever but spent all their time at Wiggles concerts.
Re: (Score:2)
it's just like if a bunch of people proudly proclaimed Rock and Roll Forever but spent all their time at Wiggles concerts.
You mean like how the Republicans proudly proclaim small government forever and then always raise the deficit? Or like how they don't want you to have as many abortions as they had?
Tumblr != Twitter (Score:2)
You've got your wires crossed. Musk isn't involved.
Re: Tumblr != Twitter (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Translation: Please come back! (Score:1)
Looks like an online service finally realized that shedding users in the millions as a business model is kind of stupid!
Still think Tumblr, even with this recent change, is wide open to a competitor to take over every user they ever had.
What's wrong with outright porn? Are we living in the new victorian age or what? Let people slap a NSFW tag on it and make it require logins with age questions to access, and you are good!
Heck, change for green-check users Ala Twitter and only they can access NSFW content.
Re: (Score:2)
The short version is Apple doesn't allow 'adult' content on their App Store. So, if they want to be on ~50% of the smart phones out there, they have to censor adult posts. The original culling came when they were bought by Verizon, now they've been sold to Wordpress.com, who kept the restriction due to Apple's policy and the fact they're no longer large enough to flout their rules. (Note: Reddit and Twitter get away with it because they're *SO* popular that culling them would be a big hit for Apple, so
Re: Translation: Please come back! (Score:2)
Twitter had no such problem.
Easy workaround (Score:2)
The short version is Apple doesn't allow 'adult' content on their App Store.
All Tumblr had to do is have an app that showed all NSFW content, while still letting all of that be viewed upon the web.
Heck they even could have done without an app...
I still think it was other factors, but basically teh new owners just got cold feet.
Re: (Score:2)
No, that's not sexually explicit, just obscene.
Don't worry (Score:4, Funny)
That site's putting itself through college. Just 2 or 3 years of this and the student loans will be paid off. What was it thinking getting a BA in English anyway?
It would promote creativity if... (Score:5, Funny)
It would promote creativity if they allowed explicit sex but no nudity.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm. Text and audio?
A country founded by f**king Puritans (Score:3)
In Yurp, people be like "Y qué? Comment? So what?"
Re: (Score:2)
Tumbler is still relevant? (Score:2)