American Idol favorite David Archuleta (photo: Zack Knudsen)
Pornhub “Extremely Interested” In Acquiring Tumblr
Online pornography giant Pornhub is “extremely interested” in buying the micro-blogging site Tumblr, reports Buzzfeed.
The blogging platform, which became a refuge for adult content, banned NSFW posts late last year after child pornography accidentally slipped through the site’s scanning software.
That led to Apple removing the app from its App Store.
Tumblr’s traffic has dropped an estimated 30 percent since the policy change.
But earlier this week, Verizon (which owns Tumblr) announced it was openly looking for a buyer for the blogging platform.
Pornhub Vice President Corey Price told Buzzfeed via email that should the transaction take place, Pornhub would restore Tumblr’s NSFW content.
“Tumblr was a safe haven for those who wanted to explore and express their sexuality, adult entertainment aficionados included,” Price wrote to BuzzFeed. “We’ve long been dismayed that such measures were taken to eradicate erotic communities on the platform, leaving many individuals without an asylum through which they could comfortably peruse adult content.”
“There are obvious synergies between the two brands and value Pornhub could derive from Tumblr,” he added.
“We’re extremely interested in acquiring the platform and are very much looking forward to one day restoring it to its former glory with NSFW content.”
Back in December, as the nudity ban took effect, Pornhub was openly trying to woo former Tumblr users to its own platform.
Tumblrs:Pornhub welcomes you with open arms. Join our amazing community of millions
Curators: Customize your personal feed, create playlists, generate gifs and more
Creators: Upload videos, photos, gifs & share text posts to a massive audience. Earn revenue on your content.
— Pornhub ARIA (@Pornhub) December 4, 2018
Verizon: get rid of all that porn it is bad for businessTumblr: …fine.
Tumblr users: WTF BOOOOOO.
Verizon: hmm. this seems bad. if only there was a way out.
PornHub: HELLO.https://t.co/gqpKCrvNL7
— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) May 2, 2019
News Round-Up: March 15, 2019
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| Happy birthday, Russell Todd! (photo: James Franklin) |
Some news items you might have missed:
• Belated birthday wishes to my longtime buddy, Russell Todd! I’ve known Russell since the 90s when I first moved to the west coast. Everywhere we’d go fans would remember him as ‘Dr. Jamie Frame’ from Another World, Friday the 13th Part 2, and other movie/TV projects. Totally the best guy, and yes – he is that handsome 🙂
• Traffic on the app Tumblr has dropped by 150 million page views since banning “photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples” on the site from December 17.
• Sadly, Netflix has announced the cancellation of its reboot of the Norman Lear sitcom, One Day at a Time. The new version, featuring a Cuban-American family, was about as good as a TV sitcom can get. The series tackled coming out, homophobia, depression, and many important topics with class and intelligence. If you have Netflix, I recommend you go catch up on the 3 seasons we did get.
• A once-a-month injection to treat HIV has now passed two important trials. #LookingGood
• A new documentary, Mack Wrestles, chronicles the story of Mack Beggs, the trans male Texas high school wrestler who won the state’s girls champion despite wanting to wrestle boys. The film just premiered at the 2019 SXSW Conference & Festivals in Austin, Texas.
• Ray Mabus, the former Secretary of the Navy, blasted the Trump/Pence transgender military ban as a “stain on our country” saying the policy “tells our children that merit has no place, while prejudice does.”
.@DeptofDefense implementing this bigoted plan hurts the military & everything it stands for. Evidently it’s not enough to be able to do the job & be a patriot. This is a stain on our country & tells our children that merit has no place, while prejudice does. https://t.co/mCgJcUd9wR— Ray Mabus (@SECNAV75) March 13, 2019
Tumblr Announces Permanent Ban Of Porn
Tumblr, the micro-blogging platform, has announced it will soon implement a permanent ban on adult content.
Read that “no more pornography.”
A statement posted to the social media’s blog says, “Starting Dec 17, adult content will not be allowed on Tumblr, regardless how old you are.”
The ban comes after Tumblr was recently removed from Apple’s App Store over concerns about child pornography.
The announcement goes on to list exactly what will be considered adult content: “Photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content—including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations—that depicts sex acts.”
That said, there are some exceptions like photos of classical statues, breastfeeding or depictions of nudity for the purpose of political protest.
Literary erotica will be allowed.
The blog post says the company is reaching out to Tumblr users whose content might be suspect per new algorithms that will detect the offending material.
After December 17, that content will be set to ‘private’ preventing other folks from seeing it and from be shared.
Tumblr is urging users to export their content before the new policies take place.
“There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content,” said CEO Jeff D’Onofrio in a statement. “We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.”
This announcement comes not long after another policy change, announced in August, which banned hate speech, revenge porn and posts that appear to be the “glorification of violence.”
Tumblr is owned by a subsidiary of Verizon that also owns Yahoo, AOL, MapQuest, and the Huffington Post.
Tumblr on December 17th… pic.twitter.com/pEcftNQKoB— Amp (@Pup_Amp) December 3, 2018
The first acceptable #Tumblr video posted 17th December 2018. pic.twitter.com/RX1icnZR2n— Mart 🏳️🌈 (@RuggerMart) December 3, 2018
Tumblr Account Of Leelah Alcorn Disappears From Tumblr
The Tumblr account of Leelah Alcorn, whose suicide this past week has galvanized the LGBT community, has disappeared.
Those searching for Leelah’s account are now greeted by a standard Tumblr ‘not found’ page, which states: ‘There’s nothing here. Whatever you were looking for doesn’t currently exist at this address. Unless you were looking for this error page, in which case: Congrats! You totally found it.’
However, an investigation last year revealed that Tumblr appeared to have banned a number of tags from its mobile app, including ‘gay,’ ‘lesbian,’ ‘bisexual’ and ‘transsexual.’
They had also banned ‘depression’ and ‘suicide.’
Leelah’s last posts may have been removed either because she claimed to be transgender – or because their content related to suicide. This would not, however, explain why her entire blog, including artwork and images that she created for her sisters, has now gone.
An alternative theory is that her Tumblr account has now been removed by her family: either they have requested this of Tumblr; or her password has been located and the account now closed down.
Especially sad is that Leelah’s last two posts to her Tumblr account were written and pre-scheduled to post after her death. She clearly wanted her posts to live on as her legacy for future trans people to find and hopefully realize they were not alone.
And now, they are gone.
Sad.