Image: Getty 
 
 As reported by Jezebel staff writer Tracy Clark-Flory, Tumblr’s banning all “adult content” from its platform because it is run by big idiot nerds who don’t care about the sex workers whose content they’ve happily monetized for years. 
 
 This “adult content” apparently includes something called “female-presenting nipples,” which might be the worst example of that awful kind of wannabe inclusive linguistic posturing I’ve heard since “female-identified or vagina-bodied people.” So, what are “female-presenting nipples”? I’ve reached out to Tumblr’s press team for clarification, and I’ll update this post if I hear back. In the meantime, here are my best guesses as to What We Talk About When We Talk About “Female-Presenting Nipples”: 
 
 girl nipples 
 
 nipples that are girls 
 
 nypplxs 
 
 girl-born-nypplxs 
 
 nipples with eyelashes, red lipstick, and a bow 
 
 nipples that are offfff to maaaaaaaarkeeeeet!! 
 
 tits ||||| Image: Tumblr 
 
 Today, Tumblr announced that it will soon prohibit users from uploading porn in an effort to deal with the platform’s ongoing issues with people posting child pornography and other problematic, illegal content. While the decision is definitely borne out of good intentions, it’s more than likely going to have a bigger impact on a number of the fandom communities it gave rise to. 
 
 In a public statement regarding the upcoming changes, Tumblr CEO Jeff D’Onofrio explained that going forward, the site will use programs taught by humans to identify and flag content featuring explicit content and subsequently shutter any sites where such context exists: 
 
 Starting December 17, 2018, we will begin enforcing this new policy. Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose. All changes won’t happen overnight as something of this complexity takes time. Another thing, filtering this type of content versus say, a political protest with nudity or the statue of David, is not simple at scale. We’re relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check. We know there will be mistakes, but we’ve done our best to create and enforce a policy that acknowledges the breadth of expression we see in the community. 
 
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 It’s easy to understand why this is Tumblr’s particular course of action to handle a problem as serious as illegal, harmful pornography, but at the same time, there’s something to be said for the, we’ll say, “graphic” communities that Tumblr’s ushered in. 
 
 While close-knit fandoms predate the internet by a country mile, Tumblr rose to prominence at a time when the relationships between fans and the studios (that create the things fans love) were becoming much closer and transparently reciprocal in a way that can’t be understated. 
 
 While much of what lives on Tumblr might be considered “just pornography,” there’s also a sizable community of people for whom Tumblr and all of its explicitness was a kind of haven for the imagination where concepts and ships that wouldn’t likely ever make it to the big or small screen could thrive. As obvious as it is just going by the text of the films themselves, the idea of Star Wars’ Poe Dameron and Finn being in love is something that never really would have caught on were it not for the way that Tumblr artists, writers, and fans rallied around the ship. Similarly, creators have come to use their Tumblr accounts as a place where they can have meaningful interactions with people that sometimes culminate in wild ideas being incorporated into books, television, and films that might not have otherwise. 
 
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 None of that is wholly dependent on the presence of porn on Tumblr, but it would be silly to pretend that the two were entirely disconnected from one another. Regardless of how one feels about victim-less pornography, it is a form of creative expression that has played a key role in many people’s process of self-discovery and determination. Obviously, it’s not as if pornography is being erased from the internet whole cloth, but Tumblr is going to lose a significant part of its identity that turned it into cultural juggernaut that it is today. 
 
 What’s even more worrying, though, is the clumsy way that Tumblr seems to be moving forward with its policy. A number of the platform’s users have taken to their profiles on other social media sites to point out the way Tumblr is already being overly-aggressive with its attempts at censorship. While it makes a certain degree of sense that these first pivots might be a little bumpier than people would like, it’s also very concerning considering that there’s no way to tell whether Tumblr’s actually going to get better about enforcing its policies in ways that don’t end up hurting users. 
 
 It’s an unfortunate, but perhaps unavoidable, turn of events--but hopefully one that creative communities are going to be able to bounce back from. Will Tumblr itself? ||||| Tumblr will permanently ban adult content from its platform on December 17th in a move that will eradicate porn-related communities on the platform and fundamentally alter how the service is used. The ban includes explicit sexual content and nudity with a few exceptions, the company tells The Verge. The new policy’s announcement comes just days after Tumblr was removed from Apple’s iOS App Store over a child pornography incident, but it extends far beyond that matter alone. “Adult content will no longer be allowed here,” the company flatly stated in a blog post published on Monday. 
 
 Banned content includes photos, videos, and GIFs of human genitalia, female-presenting nipples, and any media involving sex acts, including illustrations. The exceptions include nude classical statues and political protests that feature nudity. The new guidelines exclude text, so erotica remains permitted. Illustrations and art that feature nudity are still okay — so long as sex acts aren’t depicted — and so are breastfeeding and after-birth photos. 
 
 Users have a chance to appeal flagged content 
 
 After December 17th, any explicit posts will be flagged and deleted by algorithms. For now, Tumblr is emailing users who have posted adult content flagged by algorithms and notifying them that their content will soon be hidden from view. Posts with porn content will be set to private, which will prevent them from being reblogged or shared elsewhere in the Tumblr community. 
 
 Users have a chance to appeal Tumblr’s decision in situations where they think there’s been a mistake, and the platform admits there’s a chance that the automated tools it’s using could make errors. It’s a process that could take a while, as a bulk of Tumblr posts feature explicit content. Users who run adult blogs can also export their content before the change takes place in order to save what they have. 
 
 Explicit blogs will be allowed to remain on the service, but they’ll be heavily censored for all visitors. Here’s Tumblr’s FAQ: 
 
 What if my blog (not to be confused with posts) was marked as “explicit” before December 17, 2018? Blogs that have been either self-flagged or flagged by us as “explicit” per our old policy and before December 17, 2018 will still be overlaid with a content filter when viewing these blogs directly. While some of the content on these blogs may now be in violation of our policies and will be actioned accordingly, the blog owners may choose to post content that is within our policies in the future, so we’d like to provide that option. Users under 18 will still not be allowed to click through to see the content of these blogs. The avatars and headers for these blogs will also be reverted to the default settings. Additionally, posts from these blogs are kept out of search results. 
 
 “We’ve given serious thought to who we want to be to our community.” 
 
 Since Tumblr was founded in 2007, it has largely turned a blind eye to adult content. The company has tried to shield it from public view through Safe Mode and more stringent search filters. But in recent months — and under the ownership of Verizon’s Oath unit — it began to consider removing content more aggressively. “We’ve given serious thought to who we want to be to our community moving forward,” CEO Jeff D’Onofrio says in a blog post. “We’ve realized that in order to continue to fulfill our promise and place in culture, especially as it evolves, we must change.” D’Onofrio says Tumblr weighed the pros and cons thoroughly before making its decision. It also decided not to remove explicit accounts because it wanted to give these accounts a chance to post appropriate content instead. 
 
 Tumblr has been cleaning up its platform recently 
 
 Under Oath, Tumblr has been cleaning up its platform more rapidly than it had done in previous years. In August, Tumblr announced new community guidelines that banned revenge porn, hate speech, and posts that glorified school shootings. 
 
 If users mourn the loss of adult content on Tumblr, D’Onofrio claims they have many other solutions. “There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community,” he said. That argument will do little to curtail anger over this decision from people who have used Tumblr as a safe place to enjoy, share, and discuss their preferred flavor of porn and adult content. ||||| Since its founding in 2007, Tumblr has always been a place for wide open, creative self-expression at the heart of community and culture. To borrow from our founder David Karp, we’re proud to have inspired a generation of artists, writers, creators, curators, and crusaders to redefine our culture and to help empower individuality. 
 
 
 
 Over the past several months, and inspired by our storied past, we’ve given serious thought to who we want to be to our community moving forward and have been hard at work laying the foundation for a better Tumblr. We’ve realized that in order to continue to fulfill our promise and place in culture, especially as it evolves, we must change. Some of that change began with fostering more constructive dialogue among our community members. Today, we’re taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions). 
 
 Let’s first be unequivocal about something that should not be confused with today’s policy change: posting anything that is harmful to minors, including child pornography, is abhorrent and has no place in our community. We’ve always had and always will have a zero tolerance policy for this type of content. To this end, we continuously invest in the enforcement of this policy, including industry-standard machine monitoring, a growing team of human moderators, and user tools that make it easy to report abuse. We also closely partner with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation, two invaluable organizations at the forefront of protecting our children from abuse, and through these partnerships we report violations of this policy to law enforcement authorities. We can never prevent all bad actors from attempting to abuse our platform, but we make it our highest priority to keep the community as safe as possible. 
 
 So what is changing? 
 
 Posts that contain adult content will no longer be allowed on Tumblr, and we’ve updated our Community Guidelines to reflect this policy change. We recognize Tumblr is also a place to speak freely about topics like art, sex positivity, your relationships, your sexuality, and your personal journey. We want to make sure that we continue to foster this type of diversity of expression in the community, so our new policy strives to strike a balance. 
 
 Why are we doing this? 
 
 It is our continued, humble aspiration that Tumblr be a safe place for creative expression, self-discovery, and a deep sense of community. As Tumblr continues to grow and evolve, and our understanding of our impact on our world becomes clearer, we have a responsibility to consider that impact across different age groups, demographics, cultures, and mindsets. We spent considerable time weighing the pros and cons of expression in the community that includes adult content. In doing so, it became clear that without this content we have the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves. 
 
 Bottom line: There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community. 
 
 So what’s next? 
 
 Starting December 17, 2018, we will begin enforcing this new policy. Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose. All changes won’t happen overnight as something of this complexity takes time. 
 
 Another thing, filtering this type of content versus say, a political protest with nudity or the statue of David, is not simple at scale. We’re relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check. We know there will be mistakes, but we’ve done our best to create and enforce a policy that acknowledges the breadth of expression we see in the community. 
 
 Most importantly, we’re going to be as transparent as possible with you about the decisions we’re making and resources available to you, including more detailed information, product enhancements, and more content moderators to interface directly with the community and content. 
 
 Like you, we love Tumblr and what it’s come to mean for millions of people around the world. Our actions are out of love and hope for our community. We won’t always get this right, especially in the beginning, but we are determined to make your experience a positive one. 
 
 Jeff D’Onofrio 
 
 CEO ||||| Tumblr, the blogging platform once heralded for its laissez-faire posting policies, is banning adult content. The change has spurred jokes about the loss of free porn GIFs and topless selfies, but the site’s devoted user base of sex workers isn’t laughing. They are worried about what the censorship will do to their community—and their bottom line. 
 
 Porn stars, cam girls, and other sex workers have long flocked to the social media platform due to its relatively lax policy on sexual images. Unlike sites like Facebook and Instagram, which prohibit nudity except in highly restricted circumstances, Tumblr opted to simply categorize such content with “sensitive” or “explicit” filters—allowing sex workers to build an audience and market their products with few limitations. As a result, ads for phone sex lines and web-cam services existed side-by-side on the site with street-style photography and hand-scrawled amateur poetry. 
 
 No longer. Under a new policy quietly announced Monday, Tumblr will ban all “adult content” from its platform starting next month. That includes photos, videos, or GIFs that show human genitals or “female-presenting nipples,” as well as any content depicting sex acts. Nudity related to art, political speech, or “health-related situations” such as breastfeeding will be exempt, along with written erotica. The ban is set to take effect Dec. 17—which is also the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. 
 
 “It was pretty much panic from all of us,” Lanae, a 28-year-old sex worker from Kentucky, told The Daily Beast of the reaction of the ban. 
 
 “[We’re] talking about if we’re going to be able to keep our blogs or if we’re going to have to just abandon Tumblr and work on different platforms,” she added. “We’re all like, ‘Oh, we really need to make a plan right now.’” 
 
 The new policy was announced two weeks after Tumblr was removed from the iOS App Store over allegations of hosting child pornography. At the time, Tumblr said a routine audit had turned up content not yet included in an industry child sexual abuse database, which was quickly deleted. But a number of sex workers and erotic artists said their blogs were deleted from the site in the aftermath, even though they complied with the community guidelines—a phenomenon that spawned the hashtag #tumblrpurge. 
 
 On Monday, Tumblr CEO Jeff D'Onofrio attempted to distance the latest policy change from the App Store dust-up, saying that the company always had a zero-tolerance policy for child pornography. The adult content ban, he wrote in a blog post, was about making Tumblr a “safe place for creative expression, self-discovery, and a deep sense of community.” 
 
 “Bottom line: There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content,” D'Onofrio wrote. “We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.” 
 
 But Laura Dilley, executive director of the sex-worker advocacy group PACE Society, said the number of welcoming environments for her constituency is dwindling. In the wake of FOSTA/SESTA—an anti-trafficking bill that lead to the closure of several sex-work forums—sex workers are increasingly being “pushed to the margins and pushed off the internet,” Dilley said. 
 
 “Sex workers share important info on Tumblr like providing folks with education, and resources, and really just much-needed community, which is hard to find when you’re in a stigmatized profession like sex work,” Dilley said. 
 
 “ To see people that I talk to everyday get deleted, my own blog deleted, it really is heartbreaking. ” — Daisy, a sex worker 
 
 Many sex workers also worry the curtailment of their Tumblrs will lead to a loss in profits. Daisy, an 18-year-old sex worker from Mississippi, told The Daily Beast she regularly used the website to advertise sexting services and webcam streaming to her more than 45,000 followers. After her blog was deleted in the most recent purge, she said, her profits were cut in half. 
 
 Daisy said she attempted to set up an Instagram account to promote her work, but was quickly removed for posting sexual content. Twitter was less strict about nudity, she said, but she struggled to build a following. Only Tumblr allowed her both the freedom and the fanbase to shop her work around safely. 
 
 “Tumblr was a site that allowed adult content; embraced it,” Daisy said. “There's a whole community there of people that are all doing the same thing.” 
 
 “To lose that is losing a lot more than my sales,” she added. “To see people that I talk to everyday get deleted, [to see] my own blog deleted, it really is heartbreaking.”
– Tumblr made a big move Monday, one that the Verge says will "fundamentally alter how the service is used." In short: no more porn. CEO Jeff D'Onofrio explained in a blog post that the site will no longer allow adult content or even nudity, the latter with limited exceptions such as breastfeeding images. The move comes less than a month after Apple booted Tumblr from its App Store because an audit turned up child pornography, though Tumblr says the issue goes beyond that. As the Daily Beast reports, porn stars, "cam girls," and others in the sex trade have long used the platform for publicity, and now they're worried. "It was pretty much panic from all of us," a 28-year-old sex worker tells the website. "[We're] talking about if we're going to be able to keep our blogs or if we're going to have to just abandon Tumblr and work on different platforms." The changes are effective Dec. 17, and Tumblr's new "community guidelines" section spells them out: "Don't upload images, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples." Depictions of sex acts are barred, though written erotica is still permitted. If you're wondering about a certain phrase above, you're not alone. "What the hell are 'female-presenting nipples'?" wonders Jezebel blogger Harron Walker, who has reached out to Tumblr for clarification and is posting best guesses in the meantime. At Gizmodo, meanwhile, Charles Pulliam-Moore writes that Tumblr's explicitness has long been "a kind of haven for the imagination" for those exploring their own sexuality. "Tumblr is going to lose a significant part of its identity that turned it into [the] cultural juggernaut that it is today," he writes. (But this won't affect the platform's shoplifters.)