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Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

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Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm already seeing posts on various NSFW Subreddits like "Tumblr banned me so here I am".

The trifecta I saw many people post was Twitter/Discord/Reddit moreso than DeviantArt. I assume DeviantArt is only focussed on images themselves, and doesn't allow mixing media as trivially as the others, but would love to be corrected.

I'm pretty sure that the issue with DA is that they fell behind the times, the social features are pretty bad and so on.

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#462
post #429
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems strange to own Tumblr... and then reject a large chunk of it. Why even own it then?

Yahoo bought Tumblr for completely irrational reasons years ago and it became dead weight. Of course now they can't split it back off to live on its own - they'll just kill it instead.

Seems like such a waste.

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#463

Seeing as everyone seems to agree the whole point (if we're being real) of Tumblr is adult content, that there's at least some acknowledgement that there's real societal value in having a safe space for various kinds of healthy adult sexual kinks that are non-mainstream, and that with this move Tumblr will surely pull a Digg and probably disappear for all intents and purposes... ...why isn't Verizon managing to sell…

HN's reaction is snarky and amusing, but based on a biased sample of snarky anecdotes. Verizon probably has actual data on the amount of content they are planning to ban, and the amount of traffic they get. Not to say they've though all the second order effects through, but they're working from a much more informed starting point than HN's consensus.

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#464

I worked at Tumblr up until the Verizon merger so this story drew my interest. Most of the people who work there are too young to remember Betamax but that sounds like the direction things are going. Good news is that the government of Turkey can finally stop complaining to Tumblr about all the gay porn -- they are REALLY good at finding it (Short KMB!) Seriously though Tumblr never made any money on the adult conten…

> Seriously though Tumblr never made any money on the adult content - they refused to run advertising on it

I can't believe this, I only follow(ed?) NSFW blogs and I see ads and sponsored content all the time.

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#465

I figured the writing was on the wall with that whole garbage static page, along with "Disabled due to safe-mode". Of course, you had to have an account and all its bullshit to 'turn off' safe mode. Whereas, reddit, imgur, pornhub, and all of them have no safe-mode garbage. Reddit has a click-thru if you hit a sub on a work machine (and then you can bail out). But yeah, this is setting a "dead by" date probably 6 mon…

Reddit was never super easy. You had to create an account and click 2 checkboxes on the web-only version in your account settings. Even so searches were still filtered on the official mobile app IIRC.

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#466
post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While "Tumblr is for porn" seems to be received wisdom, let me play devil's advocate (angel's advocate?): most of us are just taking that for granted without digging in. In 2016, Motherboard actually did the digging, and discovered a few interesting numbers, categorizing 130M Tumblr users into "producers" of porn, "consumers" (those who follow the producers), and "unintentionally exposed" users who don't follow porn…

The problem is that the lack of content moderation was largely a selling point for the platform. Without explicit material its basically Instragram without Facebook owning it and with a worse UI. It might be slow but if you have no strong reason to be on Tumblr besides everyone having been on Tumblr you will see a slowly building migration away from Tumblr. And losing 1/4 the user base overnight is a great way to kic…

I know I'll stay in Tumblr for sure. I was never there for the good erotic / pornographic content anyway, I just found it a good bonus. I found a number of very good creators of pixel art which is a personal favourite, and a ton of good home design blogs. I love all these and I'll keep following them in Tumblr.

However, now it's very likely that I'll find a mediating app -- or I'll be scraping my own feed -- to avoid the inevitable increased influx of advertisements so Verizon will still lose that possible income from me. I suspect many others will take similar measures (less known apps like Tyblr in iOS for example rid you of ads and make your feed sorted by timestamp and not by an "algorithm").

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough but why don't they just straight shut it down? I don't understand the need for such PR dances. Nobody believes the carefully crafted copy-paste statement of the CEO anyway.

There could be a myriad of reasons for slowly shutting down a site. There might be client or advertiser contracts, leasing issues, employment issues and so forth. Of course, customer outrage and mitigation. There might be some value to be extracted from the operation. There may be execs and employees verizon wants to shift over to other divisions and properties over a prolonged stretch of time. They could even be loo…

Thank you for the good perspective. Sorry if I seemed like I was raging.

My guess is somewhat aligned with yours albeit a bit more cynical -- I think they will try to exctract a stable advertisement revenue channel out of Tumblr but I don't think it will last.

And yeah, you are likely more right -- they mitigate the PR damage and try to prevent staff leaving in droves, plus maximizing shareholder value.

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't there an experiment where a sandwich company bought ads next to videos on Pornhub to target hungry people who'd just gotten off and were hugely successful? Found it: https://blog.eat24.com/how-to-advertise-on-a-porn-website/

Well if you find a sandwich company, you should let them know. But Mattel, Sony, GM, Apple, and American Airlines aren't signing up anytime soon. That's the problem for Tumblr. I think this is just one of those instances in which a customer just starts costing you too much money. Will banning the low-rent crowd make a difference at this point? Who can say really. But keeping them pretty much ensures you will not get…

Mattel could advertise on all the weird Brony shit, Sony could sell their VR gear, Apple could advertise next to the masochists, American Airlines could advertise seat sales to the country of the ethnicity specific ones... you could make it work.

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#469
post #318
post #301

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Except people who watch porn also buy Cheerios and Volvo's - I've never understood why such a massive market is always immediately ruled out in such an ad hungry world.

Because the people who sell Cheerios and Volvo's do not want people posting pics of their ads in some camgirl site and annoying the larger audience who don't (admit to) watch porn. Head on over to pornhub, marvel at what must be absolutely mammoth page view counts, and then wonder at the below-the-bottom-of-the-barrel ads that the site is filled with.

I eat cheerios. I wouldn't not eat cheerio's just because I saw that bee next to a gangbang...
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