Adult contents can be found all over the web. And of the places the contents once thrived, was on the blogging platform Tumblr.
During the moments a number of online services started restricting NSFW contents by either banning them, or making them private, Tumblr followed the trend by eradicating all porn-related communities on the platform. Tumblr did this by altering how its service is used.
Before that, Tumblr was one of the very few not-porn-related services that still allowed them to post NSFW contents. But things were changing as the microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007, also wanted to ban adult-related contents.
"Adult content will no longer be allowed here," said Tumblr on its blog post.
"Regardless of how old you are."
Read: Banning Adult Contents, Tumblr's Tough Decision Makes Many Users Unhappy
At that time, it started banning photos, videos, and GIFs of human genitalia, female-presenting nipples, and any media showing sex acts, as well as illustrations.
The exceptions include nude classical statues, illustrations, arts, and political protests that feature nudity. They were still allowed, as long sex acts weren't depicted.
This time, the company is going a step further.
Tumblr decides that any personal blog that flags itself as “mature” shall not be accessible on its iOS app. Through the decision, users who visit the blog would see a pop-up explaining that the content has been hidden because of "potentially suggestive or explicit content."
Tumblr also said that certain posts shall also be hidden in the search function and on user’s dashboards.
"When searching for certain terms or phrases that may fall under the expanded definition of sensitive content, you may experience fewer results from that query than you have in the past," explained Tumblr.
What this means, posts that can be shown through the 'Stuff for You' and the 'Following' sections should be affected by the change.
"In order for us to remain in Apple’s App Store and for our Tumblr iOS app to be available, we needed to make changes that would help us be more compliant with their policies around sensitive content," Tumblr wrote.
"We understand that these adjustments will impact how users are able to access potentially sensitive content while using our iOS app, and that can be frustrating," a Tumblr spokesperson said. "We are working on more thoughtful solutions which will be rolled out in the near future and we will keep the community updated as that work continues."
Tumblr also censors a number of tags.
Because Tumblr does not officially provide the tags it is hiding, Tumblr users developed an unofficial crowdsourced list of tags that the Tumblr app has banned on iOS in order to comply with its updated policies.
Some banned tags make sense, like for example: "porn," "drugs, and "sex" are all banned.
But others however, are not related to pornography at all, despite rather suggestive.
For example, Tumblr has also banned tags like: "girl," "single dad," "beard," "cream," "self,"
Some other banned tags are blatantly related to violent and/or harmful contents, like: “suicide prevention" and "testicular cancer" are also on the list, and so do "depression," "PTSD" and "bipolar."
But things go kind of weird from there, as Tumblr blacklisted some tags that basically function as unspoken social cues on the site, such as "me" and "my face" are both banned.
Apple and Google, which control approximately 99% of the market share in operating systems for mobile devices worldwide, operate an effective duopoly.
And this is where the two can rewrite any rule they want, with others having to follow, or else.
Tumblr has faced a years-long struggle with approval on the iOS App Store after child sexual abuse material (CSAM) made its way through the app’s filtering technology. And with its extreme measure of censoring things, Tumblr simply want to win Apple's heart.
Tumblr expanded what counts as offensive enough to be banned in order for its app to "remain available within Apple’s App Store" and to "comply with their guidelines."
It's worth noting that almost every single social platforms out there do have pornography slipping through the cracks. But Tumblr has a history of blatantly allowing porn until 2018, and that reputation is further tainted after CSAM material was found.
A former Tumblr iOS engineer who blogs on the site explained the solutions Tumblr is doing may be ineffective in a long term, and may seem like just a temporarily patch to some flaws.
To improve user experience and to make up to what is lost, Tumblr also said that it is working on "additional features for a less restricted iOS app experience," but it did not provide a timescale for when those might be released.
"While we don’t have an exact timeline for how long these changes will be in effect, we are working on additional features that will allow for a less restricted iOS app experience."