Tumblr Adult Content Banned In High-Risk Strategy
Tumblr just announced they'd be banning adult content completely on the 17th of December, 2018. Efforts to remove adult content from Tumblr will be largely automated – so there's room for mistakes. As such, as a Tumblr user, you might want to familiarize yourself with the process of appeals.
To appeal the removal of a post or content of any sort from Tumblr, you'll want to tap the link in the email you've received notifying you of the removal. If you have no email as such, you'll want to head over to the support form messenger for Tumblr's Support crew. There you'll attach either an image or a link to the removed content, and state your case.
As for everyone else: All (or MOST) adult content will be gone from Tumblr as of December 17th, 2018. Users who've posted explicit content in the past will not be banned from Tumblr because of the new rules. However, those people that continue to post explicit content after December 16th, 2018, will find that they're violating Tumblr's newest terms of service.
Of note: As of 8/27/2018 (or well before), Tumblr does not allow the upload of any sexually explicit video. They allow the embedding of said sort of video, but hosting is not allowed. It's likely the embedding will be included in the removal as of December 17th.
Above you'll see the newest most updated version of the Tumblr Community Guidelines – the part that's changed. This is included under "What Tumblr is not for." The Tumblr Community Guidelines say that "What Tumblr is for" includes the following: "Tumblr celebrates creativity. We want you to express yourself freely and use Tumblr to reflect who you are, and what you love, think, and stand for."
"Bottom line: There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content," said Tumblr CEO Jeff D'Onofrio. "We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community."
This is going to have a big effect on how Tumblr operates. Given the relatively sudden nature of the announcement – with very little warning earlier in the year – we must estimate that Tumblr either doesn't know how much adult content they have, or is in a situation in which the traffic they get from adult content is not enough to outweigh the potential positive outcome of this ban.
It might just be that their recent ban from the iOS App Store had a giant effect on their bottom line. Banning the entirety of the adult-oriented content on their site might be less important than the traffic they get from iPhone users. Android alone might not be enough! We shall see.