30 Things That Are Now Dangerously Sexy, According To Tumblr’s New Content Filter

On Monday, Tumblr (which is owned by Verizon) announced new guidelines banning adult content that will go into effect on December 17th. The ban includes, according to Tumblr, “images, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples — this includes content that is so photorealistic that it could be mistaken for featuring real-life humans (nice try, though). Certain types of artistic, educational, newsworthy, or political content featuring nudity are fine. Don’t upload any content, including images, videos, GIFs, or illustrations, that depicts sex acts.”

Tumblr neglected to mention that the ban apparently includes everything else, too. Thanks to hilariously arbitrary AI, Tumblr users have been logging into their accounts this week and noticing innocuous posts now labelled with a red banner saying the post has been flagged for explicit content, meaning visitors to their page can’t see it unless the original poster successfully files an appeal.

Some of the things users are finding to have been marked explicit are bewildering. Garfield? Too sexy. A drawing of a puking unicorn? Banned. Raw chicken? Get that out of here. Roast chicken? Still too sexy. Drawing of an alligator in sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt? Be gone with that filth. A sign that says “F*ck off Nazis”? Banned. Actual Nazis? Um… still cool, apparently?

We’ll also be rounding up jokes and memes about the ban itself, but first let’s round up some of these amazing things now deemed #TooSexyForTumblr.

We weren’t lying about Garfield being too sexy:

https://twitter.com/heyshanmurphy/status/1069703550870142977
https://twitter.com/heyshanmurphy/status/1069702520048623616/

Mario is also too hot for Tumblr.

https://twitter.com/forosha/status/1069738092494446592
https://twitter.com/ravingsockmonky/status/1069690258743279616

And what else was deemed too horny for main?

https://twitter.com/stewped/status/1069984007134228481

https://twitter.com/shingworks/status/1069760593920385029
https://twitter.com/glanderco/status/1069682327771668480
https://twitter.com/design_law/status/1069967727140528128

Art is supposed to be exempt from the ban, but “Truth coming from the well armed with her whip to chastise mankind” is, fittingly, too shameful for our dashboards:

https://twitter.com/kierongillen/status/1069733181820149766

And for some reason, Tumblr didn’t like references to a self-destruct button. Hmmm. Touchy subject.

Tumblr also censored the article about another censoring filter that erroneously flagged sand dunes as nudity:

*kisses fingertips* Magnificent. Could they censor something even more fitting than that? Well, yes, they could…

Perfection.

In addition to pointing out everything that’s too sexy, people have also been making jokes about the new policy:

https://twitter.com/LeftIsBest2020/status/1069652719777005570

People also speculated about what Tumblr will look like after December 17th, when everyone gets their 15 minutes in the Dashcon ball pit:

And not everyone was convinced Tumblr’s algorithm is really an AI at all:

Perhaps this was all a calculated move so the Tumblr employees could finally be free:

(Hat tip to This Isn’t Happiness [1, 2, 3], Kotaku, Dorkly, Lifehacker, Polygon, Buzzfeed, Gizmodo, and The Guardian)