We’re witnessing the death of Tumblr in real time. Recently the company announced it would ban all porn starting December 17 using special algorithms that flag content. But they’ve been flagging everything except porn.
On a purely conceptual level, this was already bad news for many Tumblr users. An NSFW content ban will hurt the livelihoods of artists and sex workers on the site, and potentially lead to a mass exodus of bloggers who want to retain their creative freedom. However, it looks like the problems go even further because Tumblr’s content flagging algorithm is hopelessly incompetent.
I’ve never been much of a Tumblr user myself, but I still knew the platform was like 90% porn. Tumblr will end up losing up to half of its user base. *shocked Pikachu face*
Check It Out: We’re Witnessing the Death of Tumblr in Real Time
I’ve been a Tumblr user for many years. I forget when I joined, 2015, or 14 I think. I use it as intended for BLOGGING. For posing art. For posting photography. For posting poetry. I love the community, the artists I’ve discovered, the ideas I’ve gotten.
Yes the porn algorithms are massively incompetent. When a paleo-artist has trouble posting a picture of Opabinia because it keeps triggering a porn alarm, you know it’s clueless.
So now I’m seeing a mass exodus. Sure all of the attests and poets, and just plain bloggers I’m following SAY they will continue posting on Tumblr, but they go on to say they can be followed on Twitter, and Facebook, and a number of other places. I just know their posts will become less and less frequent and eventually stop altogether.
It’s really sad. It’s been a great community. There is nothing like it anywhere that I’ve found. Twitter is shallow and empty. Facebook is a data mining mega machine with no tolerance for the avant garde. Reddit is a mass of trolls, spammers, and hate. Disqus is not really set up for blogging. So where is the quiet blogger, the person who wants to post a few pictures, some poetry, and some jokes supposed to go now?
Any ideas?
What about Medium?