On Monday, Tumblr announced plans to ban sexually explicit content starting December 17, and it’s already (badly) flagging offending posts. The new policy is a sucker punch to creators and users, particularly those who had come to appreciate that platform’s uniquely inclusive environment, including its linchpin of sex-positive content. But Tumblr’s sanitization directly impacts one community in particular: sex workers.
On Monday, Tumblr announced plans to ban sexually explicit content starting December 17, and it’s already ( badly) flagging offending posts. The new policy is a sucker punch to creators and users, particularly those who had come to appreciate that platform’s uniquely inclusive environment, including its linchpin of sex-positive content. But Tumblr’s sanitization directly impacts one community in particular: sex workers.
The Tumblr porn ban follows this year’s passage of controversial anti-sex-trafficking law SESTA/FOSTA, which led to the erasure of online spaces vital for sex workers. Now, sex workers say, they have been further silenced with the loss of yet another space—one that grew thanks in part to the communities they built.
Tumblr’s new Community Guidelines policy on adult content bans “images, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples—this includes content that is so photorealistic that it could be mistaken for featuring real-life humans (nice try, though).” This won’t include “certain types of artistic, educational, newsworthy, or political content featuring nudity,” but it does include any content “that depicts sex acts.
