Tumblr will ban all pornographic content on December 17. The social networking site Tumblr plans to ban all pornographic content starting...
Tumblr will ban all pornographic content on December 17.
The social networking site Tumblr plans to ban all pornographic content starting on December 17.
The new policy comes after Tumblr was removed from Apple's App Store because images of child abuse got through the site's filters.
In a post, Tumblr CEO Jeff D'Onorio said that the site had always had a "zero tolerance policy" for this kind of content, but that they wanted to make the site safer.
"We are doing this out of love and hope for our community." New community rules say that users can't upload "real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples." This includes anything "so photorealistic" that it could be thought to be real.
But the site said that posts with naked people that are "artistic, educational, newsworthy, or political" are fine and won't be removed automatically.
Users who post adult content will get notices that tell them how to appeal a ban or "keep their content outside the community."
Just a few weeks ago, Tumblr's app was pulled from Apple's store because images of child abuse had gotten past the site's filters.
The company wrote on its help page that the illegal images were taken down as soon as they were found.
"Every image uploaded to Tumblr is checked against an industry database of known child sexual abuse material, and images that are found never make it to the platform," it said.
"A regular audit showed that our platform had content that wasn't yet in the industry database."
People have said that Tumblr is known for letting people share content with sexual themes.
Indonesia banned the site for a day because of its adult content, and South Korea has asked it to do a better job of censoring adult content on its service in the past.