Tumblr’s CEO, Jeff D’Onofrio, said: “There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. Platforms often apply content moderation categories, such as “adult content,” without transparency or accountability. In Canada, Chris Tenove, Heidi Tworek and Fenwick McKelvey have pointed out that content moderation is not standardized and lacks federal oversight. Several scholars have begun to critically examine how platforms’ decisions shape our social and cultural norms.
Tumblr’s new updates promise a similar mixture of user reporting and automated content detection tools. Therefore, queer women’s content was subject to removal based on other users’ whims and the banning of certain hashtags like #lesbian. Instagram asks users to report content and responds through automated mechanisms. In my research with Jean Burgess and Nicolas Suzor, we found that some queer women experienced Instagram’s content moderation as overly stringent. Strict content moderation policies tend to have negative outcomes for already marginalized users. Now even adults won’t be able to access “adult content.” This means that young people over 18, who may be facing formative life changes, like starting post-secondary education or moving away from home, won’t have access to media that may help them learn about their identity and feel supported while doing so. This provided a sort of checkpoint to hinder younger users in accessing this content. Formerly, users could voluntarily mark their blogs as “NSFW” (Not Safe for Work) if they posted occasional nudity and “adult” if posting substantial nudity. This media allows LGBTQ people to see themselves as sexual beings - something that is particularly important for young people developing a sense of sexual and gender identity.Įven if you disagree with teenagers accessing this type of content, Tumblr’s new policy bans it for everyone regardless of age. These can take the form of fan art, remixed film clips of sensual embraces and selfies. Much of the sexualized content circulated among LGBTQ Tumblr users make available depictions of sexuality that are frequently rendered invisible or marginalized. Not all LGBTQ content contains genitals, “female-presenting nipples” or sex acts, but not all content with these elements constitutes what we would generally think of as pornography. This media allows them to knit together non-mainstream identities and survive in a world where heterosexuality is ubiquitously portrayed across social media and broadcast outlets. Porn is a portion of the multiple forms of media resonating among LGBTQ users. This broad representation of LGBTQ identities may dissuade homophobic harassment, as some of the queer women I’ve interviewed perceive less discrimination on Tumblr. Researcher Tim Highfield and I have explored how sharing queer GIFs – short, looping media - not only allows LGBTQ youth to engage in Tumblr’s fan communities but also playfully displays queer culture en masse. Through sophisticated hashtagging practices, transgender people share art, stories and engage in dialogue that challenges cisgender norms.Įxplainer: what does it mean to be 'cisgender'? LGBTQ people have also found Tumblr to be powerful for self-representation.
Porn not to blame for public health issues Alexander Cho, a postdoctoral fellow at UC Irvine, has written about Tumblr’s “ queer ecosystem” where “users circulate porn, flirt, provide support to deal with homophobia as well as advice on coming out…” Cho has found that queer youth of colour experience Facebook as a space of “ default publicness” and prefer Tumblr for sharing intimate and personal content. Tumblr has served as an essential outlet for LGBTQ youth in relation to other popular platforms. The Tumblr logo is displayed at Nasdaq in New York in July 2013.