Fans of online adult content aren’t taking the crackdown lightly. They’ve teamed up against the management of Tumblr since the platform decided to ban adult-oriented posts. “Phase two” of their Tumblr protest ended today after more than 1,300 tweets were sent to management of Tumblr, Yahoo (which owns Tumblr) and Verizon (which owns Yahoo).
Tumblr protest over adult content ban
The first phase of the Tumblr protest involved simply logging off the platform on Dec. 17 for 24 full hours, but phase two was much more involved. Users took to Twitter to tweet at Tumblr’s CEO, Verizon and Yahoo to express their distaste with the ban on adult content on the platform.
The second phase of the Tumblr protest lasted Dec. 29-31, and users were urged to send at least one tweet each day to these accounts: @verizon, @yahoo, @tumblr and @jeffdonof (Jeff D’Onofrio, CEO of Tumblr). Organizers of the protest asked users to tweet their complaints and explain why they have a problem with the ban, how it affects them and what they think should be done about it.
Piunikaweb reports that phase two of the Tumblr protest is now over, so now we wait to see what effect all those tweets will have. It’s unclear whether the protest will have a third phase or not. It probably depends on whether protesters feel like they’ve been heard or not.
The Tumblr saga continues
Thus far Tumblr’s attempts to ban adult content on its platform have been laughable at best. The platform has been employing an algorithm with so-called “censorbots” to try to block adult content, but the bots have not been very successful. Many bloggers have been able to find workarounds to trick the bots, and the bots have also been blocking a lot of content which wasn’t actually adult-oriented.
Tumblr’s algorithm automatically switched flagged posts to private so that only their owners could see them. These posts also don’t appear in searches. However, the censorbots have been flagging and blocking cartoons, photos of children and other non-adult-oriented content. Meanwhile, numerous “pornbots” continued to post freely on the platform as bloggers found ways to trick the censorbots.
For example, some Tumblr users found they could superimpose some photos over content to be able to trick the platform’s censorbots. Others found that simply including the hashtag “#SFW” would make adult-oriented content visible to everyone. SFW means “safe for work,” as in content that’s safe to view while at work.
It’s still too early to tell if the Tumblr protest will have any impact on the decision to ban adult content on the platform, but many users have already switched to other uncensored platforms. The protest appears to have been of a decent size, so we’ll just have to wait and see if Tumblr even survives this decision.
