A better, more positive Tumblr
Since its founding in 2007, Tumblr has always been a place for wide open, creative self-expression at the heart of community and culture. To borrow from our founder David Karp, weāre proud to have inspired a generation of artists, writers, creators, curators, and crusaders to redefine our culture and to help empower individuality.
Over the past several months, and inspired by our storied past, weāve given serious thought to who we want to be to our community moving forward and have been hard at work laying the foundation for a better Tumblr. Weāve realized that in order to continue to fulfill our promise and place in culture, especially as it evolves, we must change. Some of that change began with fostering more constructive dialogue among our community members. Today, weāre taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions). Ā
Letās first be unequivocal about something that should not be confused with todayās policy change: posting anything that is harmful to minors, including child pornography, is abhorrent and has no place in our community. Weāve 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. We also closely partner with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation, two invaluable organizations at the forefront of protecting our children from abuse, and through these partnerships we report violations of this policy to law enforcement authorities. We can never prevent all bad actors from attempting to abuse our platform, but we make it our highest priority to keep the community as safe as possible.
So what is changing?
Posts that contain adult content will no longer be allowed on Tumblr, and weāve updated our Community Guidelines to reflect this policy change. We recognize Tumblr is also a place to speak freely about topics like art, sex positivity, your relationships, your sexuality, and your personal journey. We want to make sure that we continue to foster this type of diversity of expression in the community, so our new policy strives to strike a balance.
Why are we doing this?
It is our continued, humble aspiration that Tumblr be a safe place for creative expression, self-discovery, and a deep sense of community. As Tumblr continues to grow and evolve, and our understanding of our impact on our world becomes clearer, we have a responsibility to consider that impact across different age groups, demographics, cultures, and mindsets. We spent considerable time weighing the pros and cons of expression in the community that includes adult content. In doing so, it became clear that without this content we have the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves.
Bottom line: There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.
So whatās next?
Starting December 17, 2018, we will begin enforcing this new policy. Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose. All changes wonāt happen overnight as something of this complexity takes time.
Another thing, filtering this type of content versus say, a political protest with nudity or the statue of David, is not simple at scale. Weāre relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check. We know there will be mistakes, but weāve done our best to create and enforce a policy that acknowledges the breadth of expression we see in the community.
Most importantly, weāre going to be as transparent as possible with you about the decisions weāre making and resources available to you, including more detailed information, product enhancements, and more content moderators to interface directly with the community and content.
Like you, we love Tumblr and what itās come to mean for millions of people around the world. Our actions are out of love and hope for our community. We wonāt always get this right, especially in the beginning, but we are determined to make your experience a positive one.
Jeff DāOnofrio CEO
Interesting folks
Love to hear what my followers are thinking? anyone have opinion?
Iām for one absolutely thrilled! Tumblr is doing something truly right for once and Iām excited to see where this move takes them. I think short term theyāll lose a lot of people, but long term theyāll create a healthier community. Itās been a long time coming, I remember my first experience with porn was when I was 12 on this very site. So about 10 years ago. Then when I was in High School I found the BDSM community and entered a world of degeneracy and pain. I talked my husband (then boyfriend) into participating in BDSM activities. We really strayed because of that world. We were a part of it for 2-3 years, then we left as adults, but I truly blame Tumblr and my exposure to pornography as a minor for the struggles we endured. Itās shameful and embarrassing for me to talk about because I single handedly dragged him into sin. The rabbit hole goes much deeper than even what is on Tumblr, but for many young kids and young adults it IS the gateway to this world. My husband was just trying to make me happy at the time as we were both young. The BDSM community really played off of my father issues and exploited my past child abuse. Itās an evil place to be, I know because I was there. Porn is dangerous and doesnāt belong on any site children can access and as far as Iām concerned Tumblr is providing a service that is part of the free market. Donāt like them getting rid of adult content? Then you can leave. They are making a wise and morally sound decision and for it I intend to stand by them! š I apologize if that was TMI, but I hope someone seeās my story and realizes how good of a move this is and how many children can be spared from the same pain I went through.
PS, just to follow upā¦ since leaving the BDSM community my husband and I have denounced pornography and sexual deviancy, really red-pilled and brought God back into our relationship and life. Weāre now married. We made a complete 180 and Iām proud of the people we are today, married, living a life for God, and pure. God pulled us out and our life is full of hope. We didnāt have that just a few years ago before we left the cult of deviancy and degeneracy. God has blessed us immensely, so we definitely got our happy ending. It just took a lot of crawling out of a hole we dug ourselves into.
I randomly found this in the many replies and had to take a step back. You were browsing the internet unsupervised without any parental monitoring yet blame a website for your exposure to pornography? You condemn an entire community that is all about self, same and consensual for your misguided forays into BDSM? Once again you blame the internet for this?
As a Christian I am sure you are familiar with the whole concept of not judging others, yes?
Please take a step back here and reflect on how you are so eager to blame everyone else instead of your parents/guardians, or yourself. I am a mother of a pre-teen who happens to attend a Christian school because I like the ground principles, not so much the common Christian. You can bet that there is no such thing as unlimited, unsupervised internet use. But I am also aware of the fact that there is absolutely no way parents can shelter their children and instead of them being exposed to third hand nonsense we established a good relationship that leads to my child knowing they can ask any question at any time, without judgement. We are teaching about tolerance, about consent, about accepting that everyone is different. You know, like Christians. Minus the church.
TL;DR: How about parents actually start caring about what their children are up to and people accepting some responsibility? How about live and let live. And using the freaking safe mode function.
I would apologize for responding to a stranger's post but that's the beauty of social media, isn't it. You're exposed to things you might not like, but unlike NSFW content there is no feature to hide bigotry and self righteousness.
