Last December, Tumblr CEO Jeff D’Onofrio announced that the popular and notoriously NSFW platform was banning all “adult content,” which included “photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals” or ”female-presenting nipples.” We were quick to assume that with this content outlawed, on a site that markets itself as “a place to express yourself,” there’d be no more Tumblr. It was the end of an era.
The analytics site SimilarWeb, found that the site’s traffic fell from 521 million visits in December to 369 million in February, suggesting that the porn ban has, in fact, dissuaded many of its users. Prior to safe mode becoming Tumblr’s default setting, hiding posts deemed inappropriate from view, the site served as a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community, where things like identity and sense of self could be explored in a mostly anonymous and sometimes graphic setting. While the site’s new guidelines intend to create a “safe place for creative expression,” it appears they’ve done just the opposite.
The policy was put into place after Apple pulled Tumblr from its App Store, after it was found to be hosting child pornography. The now porn-free app has been reinstated.