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:
I haven’t logged into my Tumblr for a year but I had to check which posts had been flagged. pic.twitter.com/dhQpJu5M6v
— Kieran (@KingImpulse) December 4, 2018
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?
i know this tumblr thing is fucking over a lot of people but this is so fucking funny i am dying pic.twitter.com/VJm8s5HTBY
— PJ (@Android_Sparky) December 3, 2018
YEAH!!!! OKAY!!!!! MY PAINTING OF FRUITS WITH FUCKIN TEETH GOT FLAGGED LMFAO!!!!!!!! #Tumblr pic.twitter.com/cYAfPhgRnZ
— ☆ RB ☆ (@RBtheARTISAN) December 4, 2018
I am just going to make a thread of photos flagged by @tumblr as I go through reporting everything to force Tumblr to spend paid man hours reviewing all my content. Let’s start with the first two. pic.twitter.com/faSzAGLTGE
— Nate Igor Smith (@drivenbyboredom) December 3, 2018
I mean…I know the lions are naked but.. pic.twitter.com/ahGB7Gmv3b
— Megan Nicole Dong (@sketchshark) December 3, 2018
hey everyone check out my spicy tumblr lewds pic.twitter.com/0RkhGWOdjq
— Frack フラック 🦎👅💦 (@_FrackAttack) December 4, 2018
2 hotttt 4 tumblr (yes, really) pic.twitter.com/nE3R45ppIO
— Aelita West (parody) (@ardaniel) December 4, 2018
Look at all the explicit sex and nudity in these dragons and dinosaurs I drew. @tumblr your tech is terrible at this. So many of my illustrations are flagged, even ones that have appeared in actual children’s books nationwide. pic.twitter.com/Czd2jBBozI
— RJ Palmer (@arvalis) December 3, 2018
https://twitter.com/stewped/status/1069984007134228481
I was looking through tumblr to see which posts have been flagged and I can tell that I'm in for a ride pic.twitter.com/RWkALdAGw6
— yule (@soulravaging) December 4, 2018
went to Tumblr for the first time in 2 years to check if anything got flagged, and it was this
(cc: @nocontextCV ) pic.twitter.com/2xeCcaLihB— Jon "@jonthered.bsky.social" the Red (@jontheredrc) December 3, 2018
All the water in Atlanta is unsafe to drink and my digital paintings of caves are too hot for Tumblr to handle. pic.twitter.com/IGckljHlqB
— Anne Sullivan 🦄 (@annetropy) December 3, 2018
https://twitter.com/shingworks/status/1069760593920385029
https://twitter.com/glanderco/status/1069682327771668480
https://twitter.com/design_law/status/1069967727140528128
Seriously, tumblr??? pic.twitter.com/pqa4MIRqHp
— Elisa Hansen 💀 (@ElisaInTime) December 4, 2018
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…
The censorship Algorithm on #Tumblr is flagging reblogs of the official announcement of the change in policy. 🤦🏻♀️ Just pull the plug on the serverwhy don’t you…
The iceberg is coming for Tumblr and they’re steering towards it! pic.twitter.com/4bbk6sgx61
— VickyTheDemon (@VickyTheDemon) December 4, 2018
Perfection.
In addition to pointing out everything that’s too sexy, people have also been making jokes about the new policy:
Congratulations to Tumblr on taking a stand against the only thing people still go on Tumblr for
— Mike Drucker (@MikeDrucker) December 3, 2018
Ah, yes, Tumblr, the site where ♀️nipples are banned faster than than white supremacist nazi blogs.
— Nij 💖💜💙🏳️🌈 (@Nijuukoo) December 3, 2018
https://twitter.com/LeftIsBest2020/status/1069652719777005570
a live look at Tumblr HQ: pic.twitter.com/4VBbxlzYs0
— j/ason (@jasleeack) December 3, 2018
People also speculated about what Tumblr will look like after December 17th, when everyone gets their 15 minutes in the Dashcon ball pit:
#tumblr after deleting all NSFW blogs pic.twitter.com/e3mpAgLG2R
— 💎Dabier/Ambussshking💎 (@OfficialDabier) December 4, 2018
Tumblr on December 17 pic.twitter.com/5WpLW8OpJ2
— Tristan Cooper (@TristanACooper) December 3, 2018
And not everyone was convinced Tumblr’s algorithm is really an AI at all:
When d'ya think Tumblr's gonna admit that their NSFW detector is a random number generator they accidentally hooked up for testing?
As a connoisseur of rubbish AI, the posts it's flagging aren't…similar enough to be bad AI detection?
"is beige" or "has dots" I'd understand!
— Dr Kate Compton (@GalaxyKate) December 4, 2018
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)