Tumblr going family friendly

[Magic Ted]

Tumblr is an aging website of spotty code and spottier moderation. No small amount of illegal content was hosted there, a core of that being pornographic, and to remain operational altogether it needed to be removed. Given the former, they axed it all.

NSFW material won't come back. Tumblr itself will probably keep on going for a while, sure, but it no longer has any real competition against Twitter or something. It's not going to close down or something, it's a popular form of media on the internet it'll keep on going forever. Dead comedy forum Something Awful is still going. Happens.

 

[Ethereal Dragon]

One thing I hope never happens after this happens, Patreon following suit months down the road, they've already pulled enough bullshit the past few years which hurt their rep with lewd artists and game makers.

 

[Evil]

The thing is as well, Tumblr probably can't do anything now at this stage.
Compare the number of employees they have with Twitter and Facebook. Then look at user numbers.
Tumblr - 441 employees for 450 million blogs.
Twitter - 3372 employees for 335 million users.
Facebook - 30, 275 employees for 2.2 billion users (per month).

Tumblr can't keep up anymore, they can't go for the precise moderation that's needed for a website of that size and have had to go for a sledgehammer approach. And they've smashed themselves in the knees.

If you really want to sum up Tumblr's solutions to all their problems lately, well, there's this gif

 

[XBoxMaster131]

I'm hoping that users wont just start deleting their profiles left and right. Like I said, I'm following a shitload of people, way too many to keep tabs on 24/7, or even remember all of their names. So if they just start hitting the self destruct before I can pinpoint their alternative sites, I'll likely never be able to find them again.

I know at least one artist who is planning on nuking their account before this weekend, so I'm actually a decent bit nervous.

 

[Ethereal Dragon]

I'm hoping that users wont just start deleting their profiles left and right. Like I said, I'm following a shitload of people, way too many to keep tabs on 24/7, or even remember all of their names. So if they just start hitting the self destruct before I can pinpoint their alternative sites, I'll likely never be able to find them again.

I know at least one artist who is planning on nuking their account before this weekend, so I'm actually a decent bit nervous.

Just going through my follow list and bookmarking places I have no accounts on or if they have a link to furaffinity, inkbunny or pixiv I just follow them there. Some of them are going exclusively for twitter or newgrounds, I have an account at newgrounds though I need to see if that account is even still alive. I had trouble trying to go through my follow list so I just went down through about 20-25% of it and found ones that have alternative sites and then hit unfollowed. Lots of artists are already planning on doing a mass logout on the 17th so yeah got until then b4 tumblr nukes everything.

 

[XBoxMaster131]

Just going through my follow list and bookmarking places I have no accounts on or if they have a link to furaffinity, inkbunny or pixiv I just follow them there. Some of them are going exclusively for twitter or newgrounds, I have an account at newgrounds though I need to see if that account is even still alive. I had trouble trying to go through my follow list so I just went down through about 20-25% of it and found ones that have alternative sites and then hit unfollowed. Lots of artists are already planning on doing a mass logout on the 17th so yeah got until then b4 tumblr nukes everything.

Yeah, but, like I said. I'm following over 1100 people. Going through each and every fucking one of them to find where they are moving to is going to be an absolute bitch and a half.


Sigh

I'll get started this weekend. Wish me luck.

 

[Ethereal Dragon]

Yeah, but, like I said. I'm following over 1100 people. Going through each and every fucking one of them to find where they are moving to is going to be an absolute bitch and a half.


Sigh

I'll get started this weekend. Wish me luck.

Ouch fuck that sucks I only have 117... lol

 

[XBoxMaster131]

Ouch fuck that sucks I only have 117... lol

Yeah. If I do around 100 per day, I should be alright. But still.

 

[Klaptrap]

Is this maybe an attempt to deliberately sabotage an already failing business and try to end it gaining some social cred?

That's more devious than I expect from them but I feel like I shouldn't rule out the possibility.

 

[Evil]

New information has come out about "Project X"
So a former Tumblr engineer has come out, choosing to remain anonymous for work reasons, and said that the porn ban had been in the works for the last six months. Known as Project X it was announced to the staff after it was given additional resources in September. It was only when Apple removed Tumblr from the App store that Verizon moved the release date forward. The main reason for Project X is that Verizon couldn't sell advertising space next to "questionable content".

 

[null_blank]

The main reason for Project X is that Verizon couldn't sell advertising space next to "questionable content".

AD REV STRIKES AGAIN

 

[Klaptrap]

 

[Ethereal Dragon]

good god... not only are they incompetent their bots are as well... geez goes to show how much effort they put into coding it.

 

[ShySquare]

Someone tested it and apparently the flagging algorythm targets skin tone colors.
And for some reason a lot of cat pictures ended up flagged too.

 

[null_blank]

And for some reason a lot of cat pictures ended up flagged too.

It because they're showing pussy.

 

[sumgai]

What's their business model? If ad rev then its just going to happen all over again if/when they do an IPO

User donations, ads and they run adult ads on the adult material.

Users who donate won't see a single ad when they log in.

 

[Emerald]

Honestly I just moved to Newgrounds at this point. I revived my unused year old as soon as other artists I followed mentioned they were moving there as well.

Then I saw the NG twitter literally throwing all the shade at Tumblr's dumbassery and I was sold on actually contributing.

 

[sumgai]

Honestly I just moved to Newgrounds at this point. I revived my unused year old as soon as other artists I followed mentioned they were moving there as well.

Then I saw the NG twitter literally throwing all the shade at Tumblr's dumbassery and I was sold on actually contributing.

What's your user name on NG? I'm always interested in your doodles.

 

[Emerald]

What's your user name on NG? I'm always interested in your doodles.

It's Emeraldarcbreon
Pretty much just crossposting stuff atm to try and catch up with my other galleries, I don't intend on reposting anything older than 2016 (Outside old Patreon arts).
All and all, I'm liking it atm, the devs care for their userbase still and it's much better managed there.

 

[Evil]

Got my invite to Pillowfort, we'll see how it goes when the site isn't dealing with so much traffic.

 

[Emerald]

Welp...

 

[Evil]

Seems rather appropriate right now (1 minute 20 seconds in)

 

[sumgai]

Welp...

What happened?

 

[Evil]

From what I understand, blogs (even those you wouldn't consider nsfw) have been marked as having sensitive content and are hidden. Not to mention the influx of bots that are swamping the site and leading to malicious websites. Meanwhile Verizon's stock has tumbled since yesterday and by close of business has only regained value of a few cents.

Basically, Tumblr haven't shot themselves in the foot like people thought they were going to, they've amputated the entire leg.

 

[Touchandgo]

What happened?

Tumblres no lewds ban went through.

My completely SFW blog got flagged, so now even my profile picture is pixelated and no one can see my posts. I've got to repeal it, but apparently it's a hit and miss process. A lot of people who wrote erotic (which Tumblr said won't be affected) have been banned too.

 

[Kaida]

And it saddens me to see it do the same shit as LJ and Dreamwidth - ie purge all """problematic""" content just to appeal to advertisers while alienating a huge part of their userbase. Which is basically shooting themselves in the foot. I mean, do you even know someone who still uses LiveJournal or Dreamwidth ?

What's funny is some actually migrated back to DW in protest, idk how many nsfw/lewd accounts, but several fandom people I've spotted throwing links to dreamwidth around and migrating over there.

90 million blogs will not close in protest, but the damage is already done. Tumblr's share price tumbled yesterday and #Tumblr trended on Twitter last night. Neither is an attractive prospect for any potential investor.

A lot of those millions are probably already inactive prior to this, plenty have likely been banned. and a lot of people that don't even do NSFW stuff at all on the site have quite in protest just on the morals of it, so it's gonna be hard to get exact numbers other than how much traffic they lose overall. I've already not even used my account there in days, but I'm going to leave it up just so I don't lose anything.

(plus I downloaded all my data from it, have yet to export anywhere)

Dead comedy forum Something Awful is still going. Happens.

Thats dead GAY comedy forum Something Awful to you, sir.

said that the porn ban had been in the works for the last six months

Yikes.

 

[Evil]

A lot of those millions are probably already inactive prior to this, plenty have likely been banned. and a lot of people that don't even do NSFW stuff at all on the site have quite in protest just on the morals of it, so it's gonna be hard to get exact numbers other than how much traffic they lose overall. I've already not even used my account there in days, but I'm going to leave it up just so I don't lose anything.

You're kinda missing the point.

90 million blogs were not going to close in protest, nor will they be shutdown. 90 million blogs suddenly disappearing looks terrible no matter how Tumblr cuts it.
- If they were nsfw blogs, investors are going to ask how Tumblr let it get that "bad" in the first place.
- If they were inactive blogs, then investors will ask why Tumblr couldn't keep them.
- If they were "normal" blogs, then investors are going to ask why they suddenly left.

No matter what Tumblr says, losing a fifth of their userbase in a very short period would make them look incompetent. I mean, when BBC news calls it "lazy rules" that's bad publicity. This whole fiasco has highlighted just how poorly Tumblr operates and I seriously doubt any investor worthy of the term would want to waste their money. Hell, even Verizon is suffering from this. Last month, their share price was at an all time high of 60.65 a share, today its 55.65. Not a major drop, but still, a lot of money.

 

[ShySquare]

Not to mention that most artist blogs didn't draw exclusively sfw or nsfw content, but a mix of the two. My dash is like, 1/5th of the posts it used to show.

Spoiler: Medium Rant under the spoiler

And banning nsfw content, which, paired with the site's anonymity, was a huge part of the site since its conception, is making a lot of users feel unsafe.
I'm probably not the only one thinking that "if they can ban this at a moment's notice, whose next?". Especially in fandoms and in the LGBT+ community (we've been through this before *massive deletions flashbacks*)

That's what happens when big companies buy popular sites without studying the site's demographic. Because any big popular site is bound to be totally sfw, right? /s.
And Tumblr isn't exactly known for being a sfw site in the first place (you only need to come across a pornbot, of which there are ironically still plenty, to see that). They wanted Club Penguin+, they got a Deviantart/Pornhub lite crossover.

(Meanwhile TERFS and neonazi blogs of all kinds are still untouched ).

Honestly the only reason I haven't changed platforms entirely is for lack of anything better.

 

[Evil]

I will forever laugh if it comes out next year that when Tumblr presents its new look to investors, they show a random assortment of blogs and its just extreme right-wing bullshit.

 

[ShySquare]

@Evil And pornbots.
They're harder to get rid of than 'roaches (or Tumblr's staff/algorythm is just that incompetent.

Seriously though. This nsfw purge is going to have the opposite effect of what was intended: not only will the pornbots prosper with less people to report them, but nsfw content will be more difficult to filter out from innocent eyes.
(Getting rid of the nsfw blog and post categories is mindblowingly stupid and it'll come bite Tumblr in the ass very soon)