Tumblr returns with new policies. Will it survive?

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The app had been unsubscribed from the Apple store for harboring child pornography, forcing it to rethink its content policies

Tumblr users were annoyed by what happened in recent weeks. First, it was found that there was child pornography in the app, so it was immediately removed from App Store. Then, Tumblr had to review its content policies, including one that caused a great scandal among its users: the banning of all kinds of pornography.

The big problem is that not only banned the child, which was logical, but all kinds of pornographic content, which some considered discrimination and censorship, according to the BBC.

Leer en español: Tumblr volvió y tiene nuevas políticas ¿sobrevivirá?

The social media put December 17 as the deadline for users to remove their explicit sexual content if they wanted to keep their profiles open. According to the British newspaper, it gave them the option to download a copy of its content to avoid losing it.

However, 14 days seemed inappropriate for many users, which created a wave of complaints and discomfort against Tumblr because of the rush of the decision. According to the BBC, nearly 700,000 blogs are marked as inappropriate. The Spanish site 20 minutes collected some users' memes showing several photographs that from their point of view the application mistakenly considered as explicit content.

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Of course, Tumblr is not a social media specializing in pornography, but a good part of its users did use it for the content of a sexual nature. This posed a serious problem for the app, deciding between applying restrictive policies and losing users or staying as before and being vetoed by Apple and other companies, in addition to facing future legal problems.

They decided the first path and decided to become a platform that competes with Instagram and Pinterest for example, although the strong point of Tumblr had been freed as a pleural space. Although some used it illegally, uploading child content, there are other users who used it correctly and who consider that they have been discriminated and censored.

In this regard, executive Jeff D'Onofrio commented: "There is no shortage of websites that offer adult content," in response to criticism of the new policies. He added: "We have seriously thought about what we want to be for our community, and we have realized that to continue fulfilling our promise and our place in the culture, especially as it evolves, we must change," according to BBC.

El Tiempo claims that the only explicit content allowed will be artistic, that of political protests that include nudity, breastfeeding, and gender change operations, although this can also be ambiguous when it comes to algorithms that evaluate automatically. Therefore, it will give them the option to appeal decisions to users who consider that their content was marked as inappropriate in an incorrect manner.

After 11 years without changing since its founding, surviving Yahoo! acquisition in 2013, which in turn was purchased by Verizon Oath in 2017, this app will have new policies. The big question is whether Tumblr will survive after the changes, especially when it will have to compete for the preference of users with companies that take it a long way.

LatinAmerican Post | Luis Ángel Hernández Liborio

Trabnslated from "Tumblr vuelve a la App Store con nuevas políticas ¿sobrevivirá?"