
Tumblr has lost 30 percent of web traffic since December - jaredwiener
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/14/18266013/tumblr-porn-ban-lost-users-down-traffic
======
alleyshack
This doesn't surprise me at all. I run a reasonably popular non-porn,
submissions-based blog and immediately after the ban was implemented, our
numbers tanked. Submissions dropped from 25-35 per day to around 10-20, while
the number of notes (likes+reblogs+replies) per post has dropped from 600-800
to 200-400.

Unfortunately, we still see about the same total number of spambots and fake
blogs in our notes. So at least from my own anecdotal experience, the ban did
nothing except drive away human users.

A lot of our followers asked if/when we would move to another platform, but
unfortunately for them (and us), Tumblr is the only major blog platform we
know of which supports a curated, moderated submissions-based blog. Reddit is
the closest runner-up in that it allows submissions and can be moderated, but
isn't curatable for all intents and purposes. I suspect if (when) Tumblr goes
under, it's going to take my blog with it, which is disappointing.

~~~
aussieguy1234
I run a popular tech blog on Tumblr and I've noticed the same thing.

Their faulty AI censor bot also flagged 20+ of my non porn tech posts as porn,
including a photo of Mars. Sent them all in for manual review months ago, no
response yet.

Conversely I'm also still seeing some actual porn on Tumblr. Its apparently
not difficult to fool the AI censor with carefully crafted images.

~~~
alleyshack
I had several _text posts_ flagged by their algorithm. I still don't know how
it managed to do that.

------
Izkata
On top of it, they weren't entirely truthful about how the block would be
implemented. A couple text-only tumblrs I followed had long been voluntarily
marked adult, and the announcement made it sound like they'd be in the clear.

Not only were they not, the implementation was to simply turn on the safe-mode
filter and remove the setting to turn it off, while still allowing the adult
content on subscribers' dashboards. So they had no idea they were blocked from
the public until someone told them, since subscribers could still interact
from that one page.

I expect it to continue to drop as more realize this.

~~~
gtsteve
I've seen a post showing that you can change the value of the checkbox behind
the UI element using "inspect element" and posting the form back. The server-
side doesn't validate and you can disable the flag.

This is probably patched now but if not it might show you how much they care
about this.

------
CydeWeys
Verizon is just a terrible company all around, and they certainly don't know
how to run a big social network. Everyone was predicting this when the
acquisition happened, and it's come to pass exactly as the critics said it
would.

Verizon may well be OK with killing Tumblr. It's far outside their core
competency, and unlike their core competency, it's hard to monetize.

~~~
HaloZero
I don't see how Verizon had another option?

With SESTA/FOSTA they could be held liable for anything too sexual. I imagine
Tumblr even as an independent agency would do the same.

~~~
perfmode
The affected Tumblr communities weren’t enabling sex trafficking.

This is just puritanical American values being imposed.

~~~
darkpuma
> _The affected Tumblr communities weren’t enabling sex trafficking._

How is tumblr meant to _economically_ filter those that do from those that
don't? Algorithmic detection of pornography of any sort is a much easier
(cheaper) problem to solve.

~~~
perfmode
Throwing out the baby with the bath water.

------
fouc
Just a month ago there was a HN thread about sex censorship killing off safe
spaces for LGBTQ folks and more.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19061135](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19061135)

Tumbler really didn't do anyone justice. They're clearly reaping what they
sowed. Unfortunately it's a lose/lose/lose situation for all.

~~~
TorKlingberg
Tumblr didn't do it because they wanted to. They were forced by Apple removing
their app from the App Store.

~~~
vilhelm_s
Apparently they had already decided to do it before the App Store thing
happened.

[https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/4/18126112/tumblr-
porn...](https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/4/18126112/tumblr-porn-ban-
verizon-ad-goals-sex-work-fandom)

> But a former staff engineer, who recently left Tumblr and asked to remain
> anonymous for professional reasons, tells Vox that the NSFW ban was “in the
> works for about six months as an official project,” adding that it was given
> additional resources and named “Project X” in September, shortly before it
> was announced to the rest of the company at an all-hands meeting. “[The NSFW
> ban] was going to happen anyway,” the former engineer told me. “Verizon
> pushed it out the door after the child pornography thing and made the
> deadline sooner,” but the real problem was always that Verizon couldn’t sell
> ads next to porn.

~~~
iknowstuff
Why do companies refuse to have ads on a well known website on which some
posts happen to be porn? Is it an american thing?

~~~
jdavis703
It’s not an American thing, most advertisers also refuse to advertise next to
content that references extreme violence (think ISIS beheadings) and gambling
content. I worked on the ads team at a company, and we constantly had to tweak
our filters to ensure ads didn’t get served next to “adult” content.

~~~
subpixel
Meanwhile I have to watch a pre-roll ad to see reportage about a terrorist
attack.

------
colorincorrect
Is there a reason why advertisers don't like ads next to adult content? Is
there an actual study that shows ads in this form are less valuable?

~~~
p49k
I think they are acting on a reasonable fear that the reputation of the brand
could be tarnished by their placing of ads on the page, which could be seen as
a tacit endorsement of the content.

Let’s not forget that this is not about whether to spend money or not - it’s
about _where_ to spend money. Advertisers have countless options for where and
how to advertise, so it makes sense to shift money to more boring, safe
platforms where the ROI is almost identical anyway.

~~~
Joe-Z
That‘s so absurd though. It went from „hey let‘s put a banner in this popular
place, so people will know us“ to „let‘s police this place so people will only
associate us with nice things“

This whole ad-based internet needs to die.

~~~
sonnyblarney
It's not absurd, it's really the opposite - it's common sense.

Ads are an important means for companies to get the word out for stuff you
might want and they're in more places than the internet.

The industry suffers from inefficiencies, surely, but it's still net
beneficial.

Someday we might have fewer ads, and better ads that we really want to see.

If you ever get into a position where you have a company, and you run ads, and
you see how it affects your business, you might have a different view. For
example, I'm helping with a small new business making a very cool niche
product - they'd be dead without FB ads because only FB offers the kind of
targeting necessary (just basic demographics really). None of us are big fans
of FB but the business would not exist without them.

Businesses that have more scale and bigger budgets can hit demos a little
easier, but there's only two real games in town for many businesses: G and FB.

And of course, we would never, ever advertise near porn, not for a second. In
fact - if we felt that 'Tumblr' became well known or synonymous with porn, we
wouldn't advertise there. As far as G, well, they have porn, but for whatever
reason, it doesn't seem to affect their brand.

~~~
Dylan16807
> And of course, we would never, ever advertise near porn, not for a second.
> In fact - if we felt that 'Tumblr' became well known or synonymous with
> porn, we wouldn't advertise there. As far as G, well, they have porn, but
> for whatever reason, it doesn't seem to affect their brand.

I don't understand how the first and last sentence are compatible, unless
you're saying that you'd never advertise near a brand _known for_ porn, and
don't care otherwise? That's not a very principled stance, and it really does
seem wastefully harmful to a lot of sites.

~~~
sonnyblarney
Having your ads next to porn, is very different than having your ads inside a
technology that may show porn.

For example, advertisers do not want their ads shown before a youtube clip if
it contains porn.

Google is not seen as a 'porn brand' because ostensibly they are just
technology - they help you find stuff.

Tumblr had a problem in that a considerable portion of their content was porn.

If it happens that Google develops this popular attribution, i.e. they are
known as a 'porn brand' \- then people would advertise there, but I don't
think this will ever be the case.

FYI - Google also has some content controls, they don't have ads for porn,
they don't promote it etc.

Again, this is very easy social math. The 'proof' is not in any of my
statements, rather, it's the consistent application by basically every ad
agency: they don't want their ads with porn. But they're ok with their ads on
a site that may happen to show it if there isn't a branding concern and there
obviously is not with Google.

------
ddebernardy
I'm surprised it was only 30%... Per Wikipedia:

> As of March 1, 2019, Tumblr hosts over 459 million blogs. As of January
> 2016, the website had 555 million monthly visitors.

The numbers quoted in the article are barely more charitable. Basically it's
about one monthly visitor per blog... which one would assume means the blog
owners periodically check what their sites look like.

Was anyone actually using Tumblr for anything _but_ porn nowadays?

~~~
ungzd
> Was anyone actually using Tumblr for anything but porn nowadays?

What I've encountered there most frequently is blogs with "atmospheric" photos
and images. I always thought that most frequent use for tumblr is the same as
pinterest: for collecting pics of the same theme, "moodboards".

Of course I've seen nudes there, but almost no real porn, i.e. no photos of
sexual intercourse. I've rarely seen blogs entirely of nudes, they were mostly
posted amongst other "atmospheric" pics.

~~~
MrEldritch
I'd also agree that "Tumblr-as-less-shitty-Pinterest" is a pretty major use,
as is general "Twitter-without-a-character-limit" usage.

------
wyoh
No shit! Like plenty of users I don't visit this place anymore as my blog is
now empty of content (NSFW nude art blog). But even before the ban, content
creators (photographers in my case) were posting less and less, focusing
instead on Instagr.am networking and Patreon.

~~~
HenryBemis
Tumblr has a fantastic community of cartoonists, I have actually asked some
cartoonists to put their designs on other platforms just so I can buy a
t-shirt with some of their cartoons. Of course it is just a platform to
showcase the free stuff and then pull people to their patreon, which makes
perfect sense. Free blog hosting with X million teenagers.

------
iooi
The problem with hosting adult content is that it's pretty hard to monetize
it.

Advertisers want to be excluded from placements next to adult content, to the
point that there's entirely separate ad networks and payment processors that
are exclusive to adult content.

I'm guessing that this is the first step of a monetization overhaul for
Tumblr, this traffic was only costing them money and they don't see it as a
loss of users, more of a good riddance.

~~~
abel212
This actually makes a lot of sense. I think there are a lot of concerns about
this being an assault on free speech when ultimately it comes down to it just
not being profitable to maintain.

~~~
gizmo686
The two aren't exclusive. If major platforms of speech are privately owned by
profit seeking entities, then the fact that certain kinds of speech are not
profitable to host is a threat to free speech.

~~~
krupan
I think you are confusing gratis with freedom.

~~~
Dylan16807
You can't get back into the network by paying, so it boils down to a freedom
issue.

------
irrational
Huh, that is nowhere near the percentage drop I would've expected. I guess
people actually use Tumblr for more than NSFW stuff.

~~~
gabbygab
30% is a significant drop. It's really unheard of. MySpace and Digg didn't
have such ridiculous drops.

And keep in mind that this could be the start of an overall downward trend. If
30% leave, then activity on the platform crumbles. Some of the remaining users
notice the decline in activity and so they leave. Rinse, repeat. Once it
reaches a critical mass, you can't stop the decline and tumblr is finished.

Or it could be a temperory decline and a new plateau is reached where tumblr
can survive at.

~~~
irrational
I guess. But, I was expecting an 80+% drop by now. I'm astonished it is only
30%

------
marsrover
I have a non-porn tumblr with over 100k followers and following the ban
traffic has plummeted.

------
jug
So now we have a number for the porn traffic. The filter isn't perfect and
porn is still there. I wouldn't be surprised if the real number approaches
40%.

But apparently Tumblr is fine with it, because surely they knew how much
traffic it was driving? Or else someone did a truly shitty job with their
website statistics.

I can only assume they expect the brand value to rise proportionally to the
level that better advertising profits will offset the loss of porn. I guess
that's the harder number to estimate, and I have a feeling they're S.O.L.
because all blogging platforms are struggling in the days of the big services
like Instagram and Facebook, and those don't even have to try reverse a brand
associated with porn... They can speak of staying out of these big social
networks and win privacy and not selling your private life, but the problem is
that literally billions are on these services. They're giving you the
unparalleled reach.

------
tonymet
I'd wager that more than 30% of content consumed , and probably 60+% on insta,
is adult content. The difference here is that tumblr didn't have the resources
to mitigate the issue, so they chose a blunt cut-off.

~~~
totoglazer
I’m not big into insta, but I don’t get that impression at all. Tumblr, sure.

------
bazzargh
The data linked in the article suggests a different, less headline-grabbing
cause: perhaps Oath's obnoxious cookie banner? The statista figures showed the
downturn starting well before december:
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/261925/unique-
visitors-t...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/261925/unique-visitors-to-
tumblrcom/)

That points back to July 2018. It's not quite a smoking gun, as their GDPR
banner went up in late May, ahead of the 25th May deadline; even back then
people were complaining that their tumblr stats were tumbling.

[https://twirpz.wordpress.com/2018/05/20/has-oath-killed-
tumb...](https://twirpz.wordpress.com/2018/05/20/has-oath-killed-tumblr/)

------
HenryBemis
Tumblr is just lazy nowadays. There are many fandoms being active though. The
spark is long gone since Yahoo got their old shaggy greedy fingers on it.
Pornography aside, it is a great place to host a blog. Nice template, can
support many types of media. The disgusting part is the 3-4 pages of other
filthy fingers (ads-trackers) that welcome you every time you go to <insert-
name>.tumblr.com

~~~
Hoasi
> The disgusting part is the 3-4 pages of other filthy fingers (ads-trackers)
> that welcome you every time you go to <insert-name>.tumblr.com

I moved 1500+ posts (drawings, own content) from Tumblr to Jekyll just to
avoid that page. It seems designed to repel visitors permanently. People
cannot reasonably opt out of 300+ ads-trackers each time they check a single
blog. Another great missed opportunity as a competitor to WordPress, and other
blogging platforms, Tumblr will follow the path of Posterous.

~~~
HenryBemis
I've seen many people keep their blog to git.. I'll have a look at Jekyll,
thank you for the recommendation!

~~~
Hoasi
Jekyll is great. This _gist_ is a good starting point (once you are familiar
with Jekyll) to migrate from tumblr:
[https://gist.github.com/ndarville/5f8a7fb93191801de460c5ebe2...](https://gist.github.com/ndarville/5f8a7fb93191801de460c5ebe21cc9d4)

------
classicsnoot
More than a few comments here lay the blame on "puritanical Americanism" and,
as an American, I'm wondering where these so-called Puritans are when it comes
to gay wedding cakes, homeschooling, residence based cotton industry,
Christian expression, and gun rights.

America is neo-Protestant, not puritanical.

------
ChildOfChaos
That's not that much to be honest.

Most people were expecting Tumblr to be dead. I am sure they are pretty happy
with these numbers.

------
JBReefer
I wonder what the dollar value of that is. I know that even fairly recently
Tumblr was valued at $0

~~~
HenryBemis
The problem with Tumblr is that they could never figure out how to make profit
from it. Yahoo just made things worse by giving full access to so many
advertisers and trackers. Think Cambridge Analytica x50, but at least they
have do documented it.

------
wheelerwj
honestly, 30% isn't terrible for a major shift. I imagine they will save a
considerable amount of money on moderation and dealing with legal issues.

~~~
scrollaway
30 percent in three months is huge for a site this large. It's well beyond
critical mass needed to cause a permanent downward trend. The effect of the
loss of one third of the community will have an impact on the rest, causing
others to leave, and so on.

------
2038AD
I had already stopped using Tumblr but after the ridiculous advertiser opt-out
with GDPR and the introduction of the infamously inaccurate censorship AI, I
deleted my account

------
eruci
Tumbling down

------
etaerc
Hm, they must have gained a shit load of new content creators. Porn and
<shitload_of_letters>\+ was not just 30% of tumblr, it was like 80% of it.

~~~
Pfhreak
> <shitload_of_letters>+

... really? You can use LGBT+ that's four letters. Or GSM (Gender/Sexual
Minorities), that's three letters and it doesn't require you to stay current
on what the letters represent.

Going out of your way to type _more_ letters to take a shot at a minority
community is not a great look.

~~~
2038AD
To be fair I think it was more a joke about the acronym being overloaded. LGBT
on its own is already longer than it needs to be with 2/3 ways of saying
'attracted to people of the same gender or sex' but it then gets extended with
two Qs (queer and questioning), 2 As (asexual and allies), a P for pansexual
(which then causes arguments over whether bisexual people can be attracted to
trans people) and more. To add to that there are more distinctions which
should arguably be included (such as being homoromantic vs homosexual or
genderfluidity/genderqueerness as distinct from being trans or even being
transgender vs transexual(?)). In short, I think GSM is a great suggestion
with the only possible problem being at some point GSM people not being a
minority so the term becomes a misnomer.

~~~
Raphmedia
> LGBT on its own is already longer than it needs to be with 2/3 ways of
> saying 'attracted to people of the same gender or sex'

Sure and that's on purpose. Your perception of it is not the idea this acronym
is trying to push. It's not a label to say "homosexual" or "I like people of
the same gender as my own".

It's about unifying the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities
together under an umbrella. Individually they have different values,
lifestyles and challenges. Together they have a stronger voice and can tackle
shared issues. They are very different identities.

As other communities grow bigger, they are welcomed into the acronym. That's
the very point of it and that's why it often gain letters.

------
anigbrowl
This thread is notable for the absence of 'free speech defenders'.

~~~
valar_m
What are you talking about? A private entity controlling the content they
permit on their network has nothing to do with Congress restricting freedom of
expression.

~~~
anigbrowl
Go and look at the thread about Amazon pulling books with quack autism 'cures'
from the website.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19391696](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19391696)

------
aussieguy1234
They banned alot more than just porn. Alot of content normal people would not
consider to be porn was also banned, like fandom art and other content.

In response to this nonsense I've built Libr
([https://librapp.com](https://librapp.com)). I'm in the process of launching
it to production now, first to the early access people that signed up and then
to the wider public.

It's a progressive web app built on serverless tech and could handle all of
that lost Tumblr traffic, if it all came overnight (unlikely but who knows)

~~~
tuesdayrain
I'm confused why the "Safety for women" section doesn't contain anything that
specifically targets women. I believe male safety is a concern of equal
importance.

~~~
krapp
Every one of those bullet points is an issue which predominantly affects women
versus men. Implying that an equal amount of men are stalked and harassed
online and sent unsolicited nude pictures is simply incorrect.

Male safety in this regard is _not_ of equal importance because male risk is
so low in proportion as to be practically nonexistent.

IIRC, Tumblr users tend more often to be women, so it makes sense to advertise
features towards women for a site whose intent is to draw in former Tumblr
users. But... the site doesn't say those features are only available for
women, so given that they're available for men as well, I don't see what the
concern is.

~~~
scrollaway
You're conflating importance and need, I think. It's as important, even if
there is less need for it.

We value lives equally, even though some need more protection than others.

~~~
krapp
As long as the actual featureset is available to everyone, there's no issue
with unequal treatment, and nothing for men to be concerned about.

However, there's still little point in mentioning men, specifically, when
advertising those features to a primarily female demographic with those
specific concerns.

