After the child porn content scandal that led to its deletion from the App Store, social media platform Tumblr has begun censoring nudes
As of December 17, 2018, Tumblr’s social platform will ban the publication of any adult content within its platform. The ban includes photos and content with clear reference to sex, explicit nudes and will also hit the so-called artistic nudes. The choice was made to eradicate the large number of porn-related groups active on Tumblr.
The announcement of the blogging and microblogging platform comes a few days after its deletion from Apple’s App Store due to some content considered as child pornography material that was not removed in a very short time by the social media administrators. In order to no longer fall under such limitations or penalties Tumblr has decided to remove all content related to porn and explicit sex scenes. The restriction applies not only on photos and videos but also for GIFs posted on Tumblr. Illustrations and art featuring nudity are still acceptable but only in case no sexual acts are depicted. While there should be no restrictions on content such as breastfeeding and postpartum photos.
How Tumblr’s porn censorship works
As of December 17, 2018, any posts with explicit pornographic content will be flagged and deleted by special control algorithms developed by the social media company. These are automatic censorship systems already seen on other platforms such as Facebook or Instagram in recent times. For the moment Tumblr will send an email to users who have posted particular adult content detected by the algorithms and will warn them that their photo or video will be hidden from the view of all other members of the social. Posts with pornographic content will be automatically set as private, which will prevent sharing in the Tumblr community.
Any user will still be able to challenge the decision made by the social and defend their photo or video as an artistic expression of human nudity by responding to the above email. In that case, the developers will manually consider the content without relying on the algorithms and decide whether the choice of the automatic control system was right or not.