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Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

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Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well remember what actually happened. Apple removed their app! That's a bigger problem in general (I think at some point, legislators will need to force Apple to allow 3rd party installs without jailbreaking a phone). Tumblr had issues with jailbait and childporn. Even with a lot of moderation and policing, it was difficult to keep under control. As an interesting consequence, people who use scripts to rip entire blo…

Apple specifically removed it for child porn, and once Tumblr took care of that (before removing adult content in general), Apple added them back to the store.

Taking care of it on an ongoing basis might have been too great a burden for the (assumedly-understaffed) team, or they had too few tools to deal with it and no incentive or manpower to create new ones that worked with the existing adult content system.

Simply banning adult content en masse allows them to use heuristics to identify nudtiy and genitalia in images.

Previously, they would have had to make a judgment call on whether those depicted were of adult age. By banning all of it, they no longer have the responsibility to make that choice.

Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great deal of advertising revolves around "brand awareness". You may not be selling a particular product to the consumer, but keeping your brand in the mind of the consumer. Understandably so, not all advertisers want their brand associated with adult content. Where an ad is seen can be just as (if not more) important to the advertiser as the ad itself. So, if your site serves up adult content -- you can guarantee…

> A great deal of advertising revolves around "brand awareness". You may not be selling a particular product to the consumer, but keeping your brand in the mind of the consumer. Understandably so, not all advertisers want their brand associated with adult content. If all brands allowed their ads to appear next to adult content, then it wouldn't be any special association for any particular brand, just another outlet.…

> That said, advertisers didn't seem to have much issue advertising all kinds of stuff on Playboy back in the day, or FHM and the like today...

I guess it’s because Playboy and FHM are somehow considered tasteful and for connoisseurs?

Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adult content is not our forte either, and it creates a huge number of potential issues with app stores, payment providers, trust and safety... it's a problem area best suited for companies fully dedicated to creating a great experience there. I personally have very liberal views on these things, but supporting adult content as a business is very different.

> it creates a huge number of potential issues with app stores, payment providers, trust and safety... I completely understand that “Adult Content” can cause a ton of headaches for a business but Tumblr’s current definition of “Adult Content” is very broad and I hope when the transaction is complete you’ll at least be open to reviewing the scope of the definition. Right now it includes many things that aren’t adult a…

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Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#245
I have a very old Tumblr account that I got locked out of (I forgot to update my email address, don't have access to the old domain email, and therefore can't reset. When I tried contacting Tumblr recently, they wouldn't help me even try anything at all to verify the account.

Will Automattic allow me to get my old account back?

Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#246
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny the stuff HN fixates on. If all you read is this comment thread, you might actually believe that non-porn Tumblr really is just "an exercise in blowing several million dollars", rather than a concern for a very loud, probably rather small subset of Tumblr users (or rather: former users). What seems at least as likely as "adult content is vital to the future of Tumblr" is that adult content has much more va…

This is spot-on. HN has generally massively over-estimated the amount of porn on Tumblr, in terms of percentage of total content. I say this as a primary source with first-hand factual knowledge.

I've observed most discussions about Tumblr outside of HN. Most discussion revolves around how banning adult content from Tumblr removed any reason to go to Tumblr for many people. These are your average kinksters, artists, creative types who have been forced off the platform because it no longer caters to their interests. Not sure what any of this has to do with HN.

Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people want to signal status People are biological animals first and humans at a distant second. It's short-sighted to so brazenly dismiss the long term effects of periodically associating a brand with the strong feelings that come with an orgasm.

>From my experience in dealing with very rich and very poor people of many different cultures, the only people who give a damn about status to that extent are the young and dumb Sorry, you are mostly wrong here. Let me present you with example of an ad targeted to 50+ very rich audience. This is an ad directed by Cohen brothers ("Big Lebowski", "No Country For Old Men", etc) advertising Mercedes AMG Roadster and show…

> Let me present you with example of an ad targeted to 50+ very rich audience. This is an ad directed by Cohen brothers ("Big Lebowski", "No Country For Old Men", etc) advertising Mercedes AMG Roadster and shown during SuperBowl

These concepts are not mutually exclusive concepts:

- targeting a group of people that are 50+ years old

- for the people that actually buy the cars to be vain, young and dumb, and insecure.

> This may sound illogical, but most people who buy "signaling" products (such as Mercedes AMG Roadster) are in +40 y.o. cohort.

That's not illogical at all; that's mainly who I see in Porsche dealerships and nothing about that contradicts what I said. In that individual statement, I was merely commenting on the set of people who care about their things being associated with a porn advertisement, not the intersection of people who care about status to that extent and have money to signal their status.

> Also, your guess about me living in my "pristine little bubble" was too personal, tbh, but I'm fine with that. No offense taken here.

It was, I'm sorry about that and I've removed it; Frankly, I am frustrated and probably overly sensitive (to the point of false positives) to the trend I noticed in the Bay area where people who couldn't be bothered to leave their home/tech bubble and interact with people outside their comfort zone, remarking on how people the world over work. Their abstractions are incredibly wrong if you just go 50 miles outside the bay area.

Due to having family and their friends spread out over the world and due to having a remote job, I've seen and lived with people of diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds; the Bay rarely understands any of those people except those in their bubble and despite that, it's not uncommon for them to speak with authority on them; I find that audacity infuriating and is something I need to work on.

Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you worried that there's not enough porn on the internet already?

Tumblr had a wealth of self-produced and curated adult content for and by gender and sexual minorities, with meaningful discussion. No, I don't think the internet has enough of that.

Yepppppp. I'm still pretty mad about this because along with the porn went the community of such people surrounding it.

Still trying to find where all the people landed after the purge.

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