A couple of weeks ago we announced an update to our Community Guidelines regarding adult content, and we’ve received a lot of questions and feedback from you. First and foremost, we are sorry that this has not been an easy transition and we know we can do a better job of explaining what we’re doing. We knew this wasn’t going to be an easy task and we appreciate your patience as we work through the challenges and limitations of correctly flagging tens of billions of GIFs, videos, and photos.
Today, December 17th, our policy begins to take effect. This means that we will start hiding – not deleting – posts that contain GIFs, videos, and photos from public view that are in violation of our policy. Again, this is a complex problem, and over the coming weeks we will gradually, and carefully, flag more adult content. (Yes, we will still make mistakes, but hopefully fewer and fewer.)
More importantly, we want to clarify the things that you, as a community, have asked about the most.
Tumblr will always be a place to explore your identity. Tumblr has always been home to marginalized communities and always will be. We fully recognize Tumblr’s special obligation to these communities and are committed to ensuring that our new policy on adult content does not silence the vital conversations that take place here every day. LGBTQ+ conversations, exploration of sexuality and gender, efforts to document the lives and challenges of those in the sex worker industry, and posts with pictures, videos, and GIFs of gender-confirmation surgery are all examples of content that is not only permitted on Tumblr but actively encouraged.
We also want to reiterate some important information from our Support post:
Your content will not be deleted. If your post(s) are flagged under the new policy, they will be hidden from public view and will only be visible to you. You can appeal these flags if you feel your content was erroneously marked as adult content. Upcoming feature changes will also make appeals more manageable for those of you with multiple flagged posts. Your blog won’t be deleted if you’ve posted adult content in the past, and there is nothing you need to do if you have interacted with adult content up until now–it will just be flagged and not publicly viewable. Don’t forget too that you can download your content. It’s yours after all, and we don’t take that lightly.
What is still permitted? We’ve heard a lot of concern about what the policy does not permit, but we want to make sure that you also know what is still permitted:
The automated tools will improve. Having a post mistakenly flagged as adult totally sucks; we understand and agree that there have been too many wrongfully flagged posts since we announced the policy change. With tens of billions of GIFs, videos, and photos to review and millions of new posts every day, we really need your help to get it right.
The more you help by reporting content that’s not permitted and by appealing content that you believe was flagged incorrectly, the better our automated tools will get at classifying your posts correctly. The more content these tools review, the more they will learn the difference between what’s permitted and what’s not. Most importantly, your content won’t be deleted if erroneously flagged and all appeals will be sent to a real, live human who can make the appropriate call.
We love Tumblr and the communities that call Tumblr home. You are Tumblr. This place has always been a reflection of the voices and communities that thrive here. As you’ve always done, help us continue to shape Tumblr into the community you want it to be.
This internet feels small, and it’s shrinking every day as its algorithms make everything feel increasingly the same. Amid all this, Tumblr has been a safe harbor of delightful, weird, and deeply human stuff, presented using the radical system known as reverse chronological order. This shouldn’t be rocket science, and yet here we are: Somehow, Tumblr is the only social media platform I use that just shows me the posts from people I follow, in order of when they were posted. The further I scroll, the older posts get. And that’s beautiful. Algorithms don’t try to anticipate what I want to see, and neither is my feed determined by the whims of a random group of people who can up- or downvote things into oblivion.
Today we announced some big updates to our Community Guidelines and what kind of content is permitted on Tumblr. Adult content will no longer be allowed here. While we do not judge anyone for their desire to post, engage with, or view this stuff, it is time for us to change our relationship with it.
We expect you may have some questions on how this will affect you, and we’re here to make sure those questions get answered.
When does the new policy take effect?
Our new Community Guidelines will go into effect on December 17, 2018.
Newly uploaded content flagged as adult will no longer be allowed on Tumblr. We’ll also begin flagging and removing existing adult content with the ultimate goal of removing as much of it as we can.
What is considered adult content?
Adult content primarily includes photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content—including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations—that depicts sex acts.
What is still permitted?
Examples of exceptions that are still permitted are exposed female-presenting nipples in connection with breastfeeding, birth or after-birth moments, and health-related situations, such as post-mastectomy or gender confirmation surgery. Written content such as erotica, nudity related to political or newsworthy speech, and nudity found in art, such as sculptures and illustrations, are also stuff that can be freely posted on Tumblr.
What about Safe Mode?
Our new policy negates the need for Safe Mode so this feature will no longer exist. These new policies are the same regardless of your age. Read more here.
My content was flagged, but I don’t think it should be. What should I do?
If you feel that we have categorized your post incorrectly, you can appeal this decision with the form that was sent to you via email or use the button on the post in question. Please note that this process is only possible to complete on the web or with Tumblr app version 12.2 or higher.
Read more about how to review your content and appeal here.
What goes into classifying content as adult?
This work requires a mix of machine-learning classification and human moderation by our Trust & Safety team—the group of individuals who help moderate Tumblr. We’ve been expanding the team to handle the increased workload, and we will continue to expand as needed.
Computers are better than humans at scaling process—and we need them for that—but they’re not as good at making nuanced, contextual decisions. This is an evolving process for all of us, and we’re committed to getting this right. That’s why when you appeal a post we’ve marked as adult, it gets sent to a real, live human who will look it over with their real, live human eye(s).
Will I see any adult content on Tumblr after December 17, 2018?
Due to the technical challenges that come with moderation at scale you may continue to see some adult content. This is true for all types of content that might be in violation of our guidelines. At any given moment, millions of people are posting to Tumblr. To review everything and to get it right is complex, but we’re committed to continuously improving.
As always, if you see a post with adult content that you don’t want to see, you can report it directly to our Trust & Safety team. Learn about how to report content here.
What will happen to my adult content already on Tumblr?
Starting today, we will begin sending out email notices to members of the Tumblr community whose content has been flagged as adult. This email will provide a link to the post(s) in question and a form to appeal our decision if you think we have made a mistake. Starting on December 17, 2018, any post(s) that have been flagged will be reverted to a private setting viewable only by you. If you want to learn more about how to see those posts, please visit our Help Center.
You can also download the contents of your blog(s) before these policy changes take effect. Find out how here.
What if my blog (not to be confused with posts) was marked as “explicit” before December 17, 2018?
Blogs that have been either self-flagged or flagged by us as “explicit” per our old policy and before December 17, 2018 will still be overlaid with a content filter when viewing these blogs directly. While some of the content on these blogs may now be in violation of our policies and will be actioned accordingly, the blog owners may choose to post content that is within our policies in the future, so we’d like to provide that option. Users under 18 will still not be allowed to click through to see the content of these blogs. The avatars and headers for these blogs will also be reverted to the default settings.
You can check and see if your blog is marked as explicit per our old policy in your visibility settings. If you think your blog has been erroneously marked as explicit, please send an appeal here.
Will I get kicked off of Tumblr if I’ve uploaded adult content in the past?
We’re removing content, not people. However, those who repeatedly and deliberately post new content that violates our updated guidelines may have their account deactivated per our Terms of Service. If you feel you’ve been incorrectly suspended, you can appeal here.
What if I reblogged adult content?
The original poster of the content will be notified of its removal, and it will no longer be on your blog.
What if I have more “What if” questions?
We got you. You can review our updated Community Guidelines right over here. If you still haven’t found an answer to your question, you can ask our support team.
Since its founding in 2007, Tumblr has always been a place for wide open, creative self-expression at the heart of community and culture. To borrow from our founder David Karp, we’re proud to have inspired a generation of artists, writers, creators, curators, and crusaders to redefine our culture and to help empower individuality.
Over the past several months, and inspired by our storied past, we’ve given serious thought to who we want to be to our community moving forward and have been hard at work laying the foundation for a better Tumblr. We’ve realized that in order to continue to fulfill our promise and place in culture, especially as it evolves, we must change. Some of that change began with fostering more constructive dialogue among our community members. Today, we’re taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions).
Let’s first be unequivocal about something that should not be confused with today’s policy change: 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. To this end, we continuously invest in the enforcement of this policy, including industry-standard machine monitoring, a growing team of human moderators, and user tools that make it easy to report abuse. We also closely partner with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation, two invaluable organizations at the forefront of protecting our children from abuse, and through these partnerships we report violations of this policy to law enforcement authorities. We can never prevent all bad actors from attempting to abuse our platform, but we make it our highest priority to keep the community as safe as possible.
So what is changing?
Posts that contain adult content will no longer be allowed on Tumblr, and we’ve updated our Community Guidelines to reflect this policy change. We recognize Tumblr is also a place to speak freely about topics like art, sex positivity, your relationships, your sexuality, and your personal journey. We want to make sure that we continue to foster this type of diversity of expression in the community, so our new policy strives to strike a balance.
Why are we doing this?
It is our continued, humble aspiration that Tumblr be a safe place for creative expression, self-discovery, and a deep sense of community. As Tumblr continues to grow and evolve, and our understanding of our impact on our world becomes clearer, we have a responsibility to consider that impact across different age groups, demographics, cultures, and mindsets. 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 have the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves.
Bottom line: There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.
So what’s next?
Starting December 17, 2018, we will begin enforcing this new policy. Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose. All changes won’t happen overnight as something of this complexity takes time.
Another thing, filtering this type of content versus say, a political protest with nudity or the statue of David, is not simple at scale. We’re relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check. We know there will be mistakes, but we’ve done our best to create and enforce a policy that acknowledges the breadth of expression we see in the community.
Most importantly, we’re going to be as transparent as possible with you about the decisions we’re making and resources available to you, including more detailed information, product enhancements, and more content moderators to interface directly with the community and content.
Like you, we love Tumblr and what it’s come to mean for millions of people around the world. Our actions are out of love and hope for our community. We won’t always get this right, especially in the beginning, but we are determined to make your experience a positive one.
