Starting on December 17th, social media mainstay tumblr will be firmly cracking down on adult content (what we at NiteFlirt call “fun”). Their help center describes “adult content” as “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”. Any images that they deem too racy or questionable will be flagged and possibly taken down; they also say that even blogs that are marked “explicit” before December 17th will be hidden (but not deleted, they seem to give some time to backup that content if the owner wants), but that content may not be acceptable at all, and “will be actioned accordingly”, whatever THAT means.

This news comes after tumblr’s app was removed from Apple’s App Store on November 16th because child pornography hadn’t been filtered properly.

The backlash to this change in their standards has been quick, like the response from the Free Speech Coalition, a group that stands up to defend the adult industry. They were clear in their post condemning tumblr’s rule change, and you can read their full letter here, but in short they came out hard to condemn what they see as outright censorship and stigmatization of adult content:

“As legitimate platforms ban or censor adult content —  having initially benefited from traffic that adult content brought them —  illegitimate platforms for distribution take their place. The closure of Tumblr only means more piracy, more dispersal of community, and more suffering for adult producers and performers.”

That’s some strong stuff. And they’re not alone; the message from the CEO and co-founder of ManyVids, Bella French, called the move “simply shameful and blatantly discriminatory” as posted to their blog.

For anyone wondering how that might affect them here at NiteFlirt, Social Shouts does support posting to tumblr, and that isn’t set to change. Our Shouts don’t include images by default, so sharing them with your followers should continue to be available as it has since we introduced them. So for anybody that might be concerned about this news, we’re keeping an eye on it from here, no worries!