Microblogging and social networking website; Tumblr on Monday this week, said posts that contain adult content will no longer be allowed on its platform. This is part of the company’s Updated Community Guidelines, which will be enforced effective Dec. 17th.
Banning adult content, Jeff D’Onofrio; CEO at Tumblr, said they’ve a responsibility to consider that impact across different age groups, demographics, cultures, and mindsets. The decision to purge adult content from the platform was made after serious thought regarding standards in the blogging community.
“We spent considerable time weighing the pros and cons of expression in the community that includes adult content. In doing so, it became clear that without this content we’ve the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves,” said Jeff.
He maintained that Tumblr will strive to balance allowing conversation about topics such as sex and relationships with banning porn, and noted there are likely to be stumbles.
Notably, last month Apple pulled the Tumblr App Store over child pornography. However, as we know child porn was already against Tumblr guidelines.
“Posting anything that is harmful to minors, including child pornography, is abhorrent and has no place in our community. We’ve always had and always will have a zero tolerance policy for this type of content,” said Jeff.
According to the company, Tumblr uses an industry database to filter content being uploaded, but child porn material that had not yet been added to the database made it onto the platform.
Starting Dec. 17th the new policy will be enforced. All changes won’t happen overnight as something of this complexity takes time. The company says its relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep their systems in check.
