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Tumblr’s anti-porn algorithm is flagging basically everything as NSFW

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Re: Tumblr’s anti-porn algorithm is flagging basically everything as NSFW

#101

Post by netcan »

"it’s often hard to see why LGBTQ content gets flagged as NSFW – although the underlying reason is, of course, homophobia and transphobia.*

I think you need to start with the impossible, define porn/nsfw.

Why is lingerie provacative and bikinis aren't? Why is nudity even a problem? Why nipples and not elbows... Ultimately, this stuff is the very definition of subjective... something that is entirely determined by perception. What is and isn't "safe for work" is constantly changing. Taboos allow dishonesty to continue.

Call it homophobia if you like, but I call the whole thing conservatism.

Personally, I think our rapidly changed attitudes about homophobia and transgenderism is closely related to sexual liberalism generally. Without online porn, gay culture could easily have stayed closeted.

Re: Tumblr’s anti-porn algorithm is flagging basically everything as NSFW

#102

Post by xnyan »

wolfgke wrote: post #96
keypusher wrote: post #5

Oath is desperate to put more ads on Tumblr, because they massively overpaid for it ($1 billion) and have been throwing money at it ever since (100s of millions). I guess because of the way the content is displayed they can't just segregate nsfw stuff into a demonetized stream, but if they think they can turn Tumblr into a mainstream site that shows family-centric ads, they clearly don't understand what they bought.

> Oath is desperate to put more ads on Tumblr, because they massively overpaid for it ($1 billion) and have been throwing money at it ever since (100s of millions). OK, but where is the problem with NSFW content (which is quite different from porn) for this? I know, I am German, where there is quite a different mentality with this respect (in my hometown I have even seen openly posted bills for a big porn exhibition…

Strong puritanical roots in the united states, pervasive throughout society.

Re: Tumblr’s anti-porn algorithm is flagging basically everything as NSFW

#103

Post by nopriorarrests »

wolfgke wrote: post #96
keypusher wrote: post #5

Oath is desperate to put more ads on Tumblr, because they massively overpaid for it ($1 billion) and have been throwing money at it ever since (100s of millions). I guess because of the way the content is displayed they can't just segregate nsfw stuff into a demonetized stream, but if they think they can turn Tumblr into a mainstream site that shows family-centric ads, they clearly don't understand what they bought.

> Oath is desperate to put more ads on Tumblr, because they massively overpaid for it ($1 billion) and have been throwing money at it ever since (100s of millions). OK, but where is the problem with NSFW content (which is quite different from porn) for this? I know, I am German, where there is quite a different mentality with this respect (in my hometown I have even seen openly posted bills for a big porn exhibition…

Ask any marketer from a large brand (such a BMW or Adidas) -- their "brand safety" rules are very strict, and any kind of NSFW is a big no-no. Its not just hardcore porn.

Re: Tumblr’s anti-porn algorithm is flagging basically everything as NSFW

#104

Post by thetricia »

soundwave106 wrote: post #87
JulianMorrison wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, it's probably a small part of their service. The nature of Tumblr is to make it easy to find like minded people, and construct a subset of the site that's full of what you're into. So it's very easy to feel "Tumblr is all left-wing teens" or "Tumblr is all porn" depending on what you go looking for. But Tumblr is a galaxy of niches and I doubt porn was their mainstay. This fact probably caused them t…

Actually, I more tend to agree with this article ( https://techcrunch.com/2013/02/18/tumblr-is-not-what-you-thi... ) that a big part of the appeal of Tumblr was a bit more the opposite of this: Tumblr could act as a personal microblog of sorts, where you could put up a page that wasn't very easily discoverable, and share with a few friends interests and memes that you didn't want to necessarily broadcast to the world…

I'm not a big fan of this meme of porn being bigger than what it is. Tumblr was never about that and Snapchat wasn't and isn't a sexting app.

The adult content that showed up was pretty annoying, especially on some tags that were seemingly less censored. Like, most LGBT tags were clean, but some would have a lot for whatever reason. I'd welcome the change back then (which was around acquisition time). But even then it was apparent Tumblr's odds of becoming anything other than another diary/blog graveyard weren't great.

Tumblr occasionally banning thinspo blogs was probably much more of an "attack" on the core user base. Not by numbers but in spirit.

edit: and for the record I'm not especially talking about parent's comment, not sure why i picked this one, mostly agree with it

Re: Tumblr’s anti-porn algorithm is flagging basically everything as NSFW

#105

Post by rspeer »

cabalamat wrote: post #22
Waterluvian wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're pretty much describing Solid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_(web_decentralization_pr... Though I could be wrong. I never fully grokked Solid last time I read about it.

That and Mastodon, ActivityPub and IPFS are examples of the sort of thing I have in mind. Also the decentralised flood-fill model of Usenet.

You can't move between Mastodon instances and keep your followers.

Re: Tumblr’s anti-porn algorithm is flagging basically everything as NSFW

#106

Post by hinkley »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #70
jamesholden wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Fire everyone who thought NSFW material had to be purged from your platform. I mean, can't they see that a lot of traffic flows through tumblr via those interests? Do they not know how much of a loss of usage that this will cause? I legitimately have zero other reason to use tumblr.

On the contrary, it's probably a small part of their service. The nature of Tumblr is to make it easy to find like minded people, and construct a subset of the site that's full of what you're into. So it's very easy to feel "Tumblr is all left-wing teens" or "Tumblr is all porn" depending on what you go looking for. But Tumblr is a galaxy of niches and I doubt porn was their mainstay. This fact probably caused them t…

I agree with the diagnoses of “not tested” and here’s why:

They should have been running this filter for months tagging content but not revealing the decision. Auditing the results and looking at the statistics.

If the filter is being overzealous then shouldn’t the stats show that a lot of NSFW material is on the site and that it gets traffic?

So then why pull the trigger anyway? Empire building? Bureaucracy?

Re: Tumblr’s anti-porn algorithm is flagging basically everything as NSFW

#107

Post by hinkley »

protomyth wrote: post #80
AJ007 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is clearly Tumblr's Digg moment. They are going to have a 100% write down on this one. It is also worth adding Twitter has built a reasonable ad business and they are full of just as much porn as Tumblr. Google actually shows ads for porn and other adult services on their platform. If any of the higher ups at Verizon are reading this: - Fire everyone involved in the NSFW filtering. Clearly this wasn't even teste…

Fire everyone involved in the NSFW filtering. Clearly this wasn't even tested. This is the part I really don't understand. Wouldn't you do a test run through their site and do some checking? You cannot claim you don't have examples available.

Image analysis takes time. You’d have X servers to deal with new images and either a whole lot more to catch up on the back catalog or more simply just soft launch weeks or months ahead of time.

I hope whoever is in charge of quality just had a coup instead of being blamed for this.

Re: Tumblr’s anti-porn algorithm is flagging basically everything as NSFW

#108

Post by newen »

phailhaus wrote: post #92
newen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's not exactly a stretch to day that pornography and prostitution are clear signs of the degradation of a society.

Who's obsessed with food: someone who eats three times a day or someone who tries not to eat at all? A society with a healthy attitude towards sex will have prostitution and pornography, because sex is normal and part of being human. I would say that a society obsessed with repressing sexuality has issues.

That's a terrible argument. I know plenty of fat people who eat three times a day and are obsessed with food. And I'm sure there are lots of skinny people who eat twice a day and don't think about food that much. I have gone weeks like that.

Women who do prostitution and pornography do so because they have few choices. Prostitution and pornography are also markers for human trafficking. Because both prostitution and pornography are avenues for exploitation of women, they contribute to the degradation of society. I don't particularly care for the argument of women being free to choose because most women in the two industries have few other choices and so are abused and exploited.

Also, banning something does reduce its usage. Its usage moves to the more criminal element of society but it does reduce its usage among the wider population and media; see guns, drugs, etc. And let's not pretend like media has no influence on people. Whatever is shown in media becomes normalized quickly. Most people look at media (i.e. other people) for what constitutes as normal and they follow it.

Re: Tumblr’s anti-porn algorithm is flagging basically everything as NSFW

#109

Post by newen »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #86
newen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's not exactly a stretch to day that pornography and prostitution are clear signs of the degradation of a society.

What? That's a huge stretch. Prostitution, for one, has been common in pretty much every culture throughout history, so I don't know what you think we're "degrading" from.

Are we just going to pretend that christian morality (in the general sense) doesn't exist and lots of people don't follow that morality? I don't see how that's a stretch unless you pretend that the morality of whole swathes of people are not valid because you have another set of morals. It's not a huge stretch at all.

Re: Tumblr’s anti-porn algorithm is flagging basically everything as NSFW

#110

Post by superkuh »

shaklee3 wrote: post #82
superkuh wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False. That was the beginning of the end. https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/reddit.com

Your link only goes back to the beginning of 2018. Pao left in 2015.and your link is comparing overall rankings of websites. That in no way tells you anything about redditt's traffic growth. https://www.statista.com/chart/11882/number-of-subreddits-on...

The banning of completely legal and non-controversial content didn't stop with Pao. That was the start. It's only accelerated. And that's what you see in the stats. Reddit is down in popularity since 2015.

They abandoned their userbase and are attempting to bootstrap up into a gentrified facebook clone with new emphasis on personal identity (ie, having people post to their user profile pages instead of subreddits, and the implementation of commercial ad "personal" profiles like u/washingtonpost).

And luckily for them in 2016 a partisan political issue finally provided motivation for people to leave Facebook for other sites. This explains your observations about number of subs.

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