I was tagged by @plumbewb @madeofcc @wolfavens @mickimagnum @fl0pera (thank you pals ❤️)
I honestly thought hard about doing this one. This year for me was not a good one, in real life and simblr. I almost deleted multiple times and felt like I was screaming into the void for all of 2023. I guess that's what happens when you spend so long being unhinged on main. But anyway, this morning I did go through my archive and picked a few shots I didn't hate.
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For my college final on the History of the internet, I chose to make a critical analysis and semi-historiography of the Tumblr adult content ban. Here is my pinned post that details the summary of my research.
The Basics:
Tumblr as a platform first came into existence in 2007 by David Karp as a very "web 2.0" setup. This included a lax policy on adult content, seeing as the website was for everyone. The TOS prior to late 2018 was literally "go nuts, show nuts" as long as it wasn't illegal.
Tumblr was bought by Yahoo in 2013 for 1.1 billion dollars, seeing the site as integral to internet fan spaces and culture, with the CEO Marissa Meyer promising "not to screw it up". However, this would soon be a mistake. While tumblr was beloved, it was not profitable. Eventually in 2016, Verizon acquires Yahoo, and thus, tumblr. There was a bright idea somewhere in there to put the app on the Apple store in hopes of producing some money. Yahoo falls as tumblr's Domain Registrar, while Verizon works as it's Internet service provider. Apple in this case is something of a CDN or a Cloud Service of some kind- not being the end all of tumblr's existence, but not having zero power either. You can read more about what those terms mean in Fowler's article on TWP here.
Apple's Pressure:
However tumblr had an issue. It kept getting taken down from the App store for having "illicit materials"- aka, CP. Which was not unfounded. Tumblr had a heavy history with unsavory characters (p*dos, n*zis, b*stiality) and no matter how hard people complained, the content would not be removed. Usually what would happen is tumblr staff would go in, remove a good amount of the content requested, and wait to see if Apple restored them. This worked most times. However, in 2018, the app was removed once more, and staff at Verizon and tumblr were beginning to see this as a pain. Tarleton Gilespie brings this up in their chapter of SAGE, entitled "regulation of and by platforms". So what was Yahoo and Verizon's idea to make things easier?
Purging the Site:
In December of 2018, staff released an update on their blog detailing changes being made to Tumblr's TOS. Mainly: no more adult content. At all. Ever. The ban was to be instated December 18th 2018, and it... was a really bad idea. Staff underestimated how much of the site consisted of adult content posters. Most of them used their adult content for income- commissions, SW'ers, models, etc. And those who didn't were enthusiasts happy to have a platform where they can enjoy their interests and hobbies like writing erotica or posting nsfw GIFs of their favorite adult films.
Not only did tumblr ban adult content, but also any tag that could be in any way related to adult content. Words such as "donate" "girl" "bald" "sad" and "testicular cancer" were purged from tags.
What is a Female Presenting Nipple?:
And, memorably, tumblr defined in their new TOS that "images, gifs, and illustrations of any human genitalia or female-presenting-nipples" would be banned. Which also caused a lot of controversy of it's own for being sexist, transphobic, and downright confusing language. After all, what makes a nipple female? Naturally Tumblr users did what they did best when an odd and strangely offensive phrase appeared: they spammed memes about it for the next few months.
The Terrible, No-Good AI:
How the ban worked was that an AI, which was a hybrid of machine learning algorithmic and classification to determine what posts, specifically images, violated TOS.
The problem? It sucked. Really bad.
Many images that had nothing to do with nsfw content was flagged as explicit, such as a collage of Steven Universe expressions, fruit, fine art, a car, Joe Biden's face, stockings, you name it, it was deleted, especially if it had a woman or femme-presenting person in it. This is known as biased AI, and the phenomena has happened multiple times in the past. Most notably, Amazon having the issue of it's hiring AI discarding all female applicants, and Google's Algorithm having an issue with associating women of color with pornography in it's search results. Safiya Noble writes about the latter here.
Naturally, users were not happy, and even before this came into effect, they made their stance known.
Log-Off Protest:
In an effort to combat the new terms, those using the site did many a thing to stop it: posting copious amounts of nsfw content to try and overwhelm the site's new algorithm, spreading information on what sites allow nsfw content, making a whole tumblr clone site called pillowfort, and most notably, a black out.
A black-out refers to the act of a widespread amount of users on a website logging off, all at once, for a set period amount of time to reduce site traffic a noticeable amount.
Tumblr user yueqingyan posted this, saying that a user-held black-out would be held December 17th, 2018, one day before the TOS updated and the ban went into place. This blog archives the various phases the tumblr black-out went into. Thanks to the efforts of users, and the combined exodus of people leaving, the black-out worked, and site users and unique user numbers plummeted.
The Exodus:
Another way that people protested was... well, they didn't. They just left. Left where? Well, mostly to Twitter or Pillowfort, or for those with commissions and needing money, Patreon. And when the content creators left, so did their fans. Because if you are an nsfw enthusiast, and all the adult content is gone, why even stay on the site? So they, too, left. This caused massive issues: if your userbase straight up leaves, and people are no longer encouraged to join the app, you're going to lose money.
Effects on Revenue:
When a site loses traffic, it also loses money. So when the exodus happened, tumblr lost a lot of money, and it was already not that profitable in the first place. August of 2019, Automattic, Tumblr's original parent company, reacquired the site for a measly 3.3 million USD because of the loss of site revenue. Automattic said that while tumblr has changed, they are now focusing on the future of the site, but what does that entail?
Merch and Advertisements:
How does a failing meme site make back all it's money? Same way every cash grab does. Merch of the many funny moments it had. Everything from actual tumblers to the iconic shoelaces from the "tumblr code" stolen straight from the president. Tumblr has even started collaborating with artists on the site. For a short time, they even included the "blue checkmarks" that twitter had for 8 dollars, but you could get multiple checkmarks for your account, and even a whole rainbow of checkmarks to remain next to your name. Overall, it's been pretty successful in making some revenue back. However, what tumblr really needed was people to buy the merch and stay on the site. They needed nudity back.
Reversing, kinda not really:
In September of 2022, Tumblr rolled out "labelled content". What this means is that you can label your posts into two categories: For Everyone, and Mature. The mature label was then divided into 3 subcategories which you could tag one or multiple of: Drug/Alcohol addiction, Violence, and Sexual themes. You can set your blog in your settings so that you do not see mature content of one or all categories, going back to the original idea of curating your own dash of what you want and don't want to see. Tumblr also updated their policy on nudity, saying that it was okay, as long as it was tagged as mature, and, you know, not actual acts of sexual intimacy. This satisfied a lot of previous users, who after seeing Elon Musk destroying Twitter, decided to come back here.
What Have We Learned?
TLDR: Tumblr was bought by yahoo, which was then bought by Verizon, and attempted to put it on the app store. This failed many times, until they literally were backed into the corner. They didn't have enough manpower to go through and delete all the problematic content so they had an AI delete all the nsfw. Except it did, and deleted anything that resembled a woman or a nipple. People got mad, left, and tumblr lost a lot of money, got bought by the original company at a massive discount, and now we can once again send nudes.
It's all because I was arguing with some lib already and @bustedbernie (who I ended up blocking) jumped in and said something about "Obama CURBING the military complex" and I thought it was the most absurd thing I've ever heard.
So, I experienced my first bath bomb bath ever, and this is how it went...
I now smell like I fell asleep in a lavender field.
It smelled nice, there were bits floating everywhere like a which sneezed herbs into the water, but I was just sitting there like,... now what? Do I just sit here? That's it? Am I supposed to think about life? Work the water? Soap up?
I only ever take showers.
I put on some music. It kinda help. I thought about what to do with my story, but couldn't really fully relax.
My cares and woes didn't leave me and float with the herbs.
I mean, the bath bomb bath was ok, but it wasn't life changing, and I didn't have a religious experience.
Fat little cherubs didn't descend from heaven and grace me with the sophistication and beauty of a goddess.
... Then again, perhaps I didn't get the fat cherubs because they saw me yeet the bath bomb into the water. I chose the chaos gremlin route.
..... then I fished it out and daintily dropped it back in, thinking that would make up for my actions.
It did not. Not a fat cherub in sight.
Except me.
*puckish grin.*
It was an organic bath bomb from Whole Foods.
LISTEN..... this chaos gremlin is in this community for a reason. I feel at home here with you other chaos gremlins.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
The reward(s) of the $1 tier (and up!) last month. That’s a total of 13 items!
This month had this many items due to the release of the Sulani Swimwear Collection. These are all (except for the hair, comes this weekend) out for public release btw! August might have less items since I need to start working on the 250 Patron’s CC Pack. Don’t worry! I make sure you’re covered! ;)
