Portman, Rob (R-OH) respectively, claimed to aid sex trafficking victims by holding websites criminally liable for content uploaded by their users. And while there are real concerns surrounding child pornograhy and human trafficking online, many still see the move as a knee-jerk overreach and another loss in a darkening wave of internet censorship.įor many queer sex workers, that wave started when Congress passed the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) in March and President Trump signed them into law.
With the adult content ban coming only 17 days after this removal, it is widely believed that the two are directly related. On November 16 Tumblr confirmed that its mobile app had been removed from Apple’s App Store after the tech giant found that child pornography was still on the site. RELATED: RIP: Tumblr Is Banning All Porn from the App
Having been known in part for being more permissive than other services about this sort of content, in November it was revealed that this crackdown was an attempt to pushback on child pornography which was found on the company’s servers. Since August, the micro-blogging service founded in 2007 had been flagging X-rated media with a heavier hand. For a subset of users, particularly trans women of color who may depend on sex work to survive, Tumblr has also been a viable platform to post original NSFW content in order to cultivate followers and find potential clients. The announcement was a blow to porn performers, curators, and fans everywhere who had used the platform to easily catalogue and share explicit material, and it’s the latest in a string of moves that further marginalize sex workers, erotic artists, and queer people in general.įor years, Tumblr has been the go-to site for curating and reblogging pirated porn clips, videos, and GIFS, and for those in various online communities - kink communities and sex communities for example - it was a vital space to meet others. Tumblr announced on Monday that it would ban all explicit content on December 17, spurring a flood of memes, cartoons, and bitter farewells that overtook queer social media.