Tumblr announced in December last year that it will no longer allow pornographic content on its platform. It may have been widely used for sharing stories and images but there was a large subset of users that stuck with Tumblr because it allowed adult content. The ban has resulted in one-fifth of Tumblr’s user base deserting the platform.
SimilarWeb, a web analytics firm, reported that Tumblr website visits fell from 521 million in December 2018 to 437 million in January 2019. The decline was witnessed after the ban on adult content came into effect on December 17th.
Tumblr had announced last year that posts with adult content “will no longer be allowed,” and that it had updated its community guidelines to reflect the change in policy. It also said that automated tools would be used to identify adult content so that such posts could be flagged/removed automatically.
Its decision didn’t go well with the community that preferred the platform because it previously allowed them to post adult content. Many of its users participated in a “log off” protest which encouraged users to leave Tumblr. The figures show that the protest really made a noticeable dent in the site’s user base. However, Tumblr has shown no indications of walking back the policy despite considerable backlash from its users.
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