
Discontinuing Support for NSFW Imgur r/subsections Associated with Reddit - void_nill
https://blog.imgur.com/2019/10/14/discontinuing-support-for-nsfw-reddit-subsections/
======
robocat
They used to allow you to browse images, and now they don't - desktop mode
used to show image grid e.g.:
[https://imgur.com/r/nsfw](https://imgur.com/r/nsfw)

But images are still hosted there and I presume new images are still added
e.g. [https://i.imgur.com/nZHfzdV.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/nZHfzdV.jpg)
(mildly NSFW but in a NSFW reddit).

From a desktop browser the first link will show: "As of Oct 2019, Imgur will
no longer display NSFW Imgur r/subsections associated with Reddit subreddits.
No Imgur content has been deleted or moved, and is still available at its
original Imgur URL. As an alternative, you can browse the visual contents of
any subreddit using third-party tools such as
[https://www.redditery.com](https://www.redditery.com) and
[https://redditgrid.com."](https://redditgrid.com.")

~~~
keketi
Clicking [https://i.imgur.com/nZHfzdV.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/nZHfzdV.jpg)
yields "Sign in required - This page may contain erotic or adult imagery.
You'll need to sign in if you still want to view it.".

Opening the same URL by copying and pasting it to the address bar shows the
image without needing to sign in.

~~~
TheCapn
Imgur does something goofy with the referer that you've clicked a link from.
I'm by no means a competent web programmer or understand how
linking/referrers/etc. work but at one point I had a little doodad in
GreaseMonkey/Tampermonkey that pulled imgur images in and plopped them on your
Facebook page.

What I found was that if the page referrer was Facebook, you got nothing, the
imgur site attempted to redirect you back through to their galleries, but if
you used the link directly you'd get the image.

I never figured out exactly what's happening, I used a code snippet that
stripped out the referrer info and everything started working.

~~~
throwaway_bad
I think you can do it without extensions in firefox since they let you
configure your own referrer-policy: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Re...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Referrer-Policy) (search for "about:config")

But even in my own APIs I check for referrers to make sure they are actually
coming from my site so I assume this will break some pages.

~~~
creatonez
See also - Smart Referer[1] firefox extension. Only blocks cross-domain
referer leak, and has a built-in whitelist to prevent breakage.

^1: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/smart-
referer...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/smart-
referer/?lang=en-us)

------
ohpls
I only briefly read it but it seems they'll still support uploading legal NSFW
for any subreddit just marked as hidden so it doesn't show in their public
gallery, which makes sense to me.

~~~
benoliver999
Yeah, does anyone browse subreddits using just imgur anyway?

So long as you can load images on reddit itself I don't see the problem

~~~
magashna
There is a weird segment of "imgurians" who comment only on imgur posts.
They're a bit of a joke on some communities, like /r/repsneakers where users
buy replica designer sneakers (aka fakes) and post them to imgur with titles
like "Couldn't afford rent this month but got these" and the imgur people
flame the imgur comments.

~~~
longtom
In fact there is a running gag that imgurians are like a tiny world populated
by a people that is oblivious of the fact that there exists an outside world
(Reddit) and that they are constantly being observed by people in said outside
world.

~~~
magashna
Only that I had no clue there was a community or comments for a long time.
Imgur was the reddit community image bucket and nothing more, until I learned
people use it as a lilliputian version of reddit

~~~
Sharlin
They've been drifting apart for a while now. Reddit now has its own image
hosting and Imgur has been distancing itself from Reddit and promoting itself
as its own platform.

~~~
ChickeNES
As someone who couldn't care less about their shitty platform, what
alternatives are there? I can remember when Imgur was first launched as a
super-simple image host that wasn't full of crap and watermarks like
Photobucket. Now it seems as if history has repeated itself, with Imgur
becoming the very thing it sought to displace.

~~~
pc86
I think that means one of two things, with two different outcomes:

A. Creating a super-simply image host that isn't full of crap and watermarks
like Photobucket or Imgur will yield a profitable business.

B. A is in fact not profitable, and adding crap and watermarks is part of the
normal evolution of an image hosting business once you gain moderate amounts
of traction that starts to stress your finances.

------
TheNorthman
A problem with this is that many Imgur links link not to the embedded page
(i.imgur.com) but to the display page (imgur.com). Normally this was, at
worst, slightly annoying. Now you're forced to login to view the picture.

Not only is this a hindrance to users but it actively blocks archiving.

~~~
stevekemp
To be honest I've noticed that links to specific images (i.imgur.com/blah.jpg)
get rewritten once they hit some specific traffic-threshold.

imgur rewrites them so they can serve you adverts, and modal dialogs telling
you to install their application.

imgur started out well, as a fast and simple image-host, but like all the
others it tries to recoup money by serving adverts and getting up to
increasingly shady things.

Soon it will be time for the cycle to repeat and a new host launch itself; no
doubt with a cute tagline saying they'll even host nsfw content.

~~~
lol768
> To be honest I've noticed that links to specific images
> (i.imgur.com/blah.jpg) get rewritten once they hit some specific traffic-
> threshold.

I didn't realise they had a traffic-based condition that did this, too. Wow.

They've been pretty hostile with this sort of thing for a while. Look at this
behaviour:

    
    
      # Mobile UA
      $ curl -v -H "Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,applciation/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8" -H "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Android 10; Mobile; rv:68.0) Gecko/68.0 Firefox/68.0" https://i.imgur.com/6WAZZpN.jpg
      < HTTP/2 302 
      < retry-after: 0
      < location: https://m.imgur.com/6WAZZpN?r
    
      # Desktop UA
      $ curl -v -H "Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,applciation/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8" -H "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:71.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/71.0" https://i.imgur.com/6WAZZpN.jpg | file -
      < HTTP/2 200 
      < last-modified: Wed, 18 Sep 2019 20:45:26 GMT
      < etag: "21d323ddb1c1926ab0d7a5bb9786c996"
      < content-type: image/jpeg
      ...
      /dev/stdin: JPEG image data, baseline, precision 8, 2250x1500, components 3
    

Notice that they redirect mobile users to
[https://m.imgur.com/6WAZZpN?r](https://m.imgur.com/6WAZZpN?r). I've noticed
they do this in order to serve them ads, encourage them to install their PUP
on their device (as you mention) and break their ability to zoom on the image
(the image embedded is thumbnail size).

They use UA sniffing to disguise this behaviour from technical users on
desktop. They also detect if you're using curl and spoofing a mobile UA (which
sends Accept: * / *), in which case this dark UX pattern is disabled.

~~~
TheNorthman
I was wondering why there was no easy way to access embedded images on their
mobile site. This is so much worse than expected.

~~~
Skunkleton
To some extent it is a positive feature. I appreciate that the embedded images
don't waste a bunch of bandwidth and load quickly.

------
bsder
Ah, the only thing more reliable that the lifecycle of a Phoenix is the
lifecycle of an image host ...

Birth, awesomeness, turns out to be expensive, somewhat less awesome, "no,
really, this shit is expensive please give us money", kinda sucky, "hey, we
need to monetize, get this porn off of here", really sucky, "Oh, crap, 95% of
our use cases were porn. Ooops.", death.

"Ready normal people! Ready! Ready! Ready!" <song starts> "The Internet is for
porn ..."

Countdown until someone creates the next "image host that doesn't suck" in 5
... 4 ... 3 ...

~~~
benj111
What tune are we singing the song to?

'Modern Major General' from HMS Pinafore _might_ fit.

Edit: The internet is for porn and has everything that's sexual.

From web cams, sex tapes, phat ass, big jugs, erotica homosexual.

And if you find a kink absent.... You're one f __ked up individual.

Edit2: Repeated lyrics repeated. (I'm sure Lennon and McCartney didn't get it
right 1st time).

~~~
wbl
You have missed out on one of the best youtube videos.
[https://youtu.be/YRgNOyCnbqg](https://youtu.be/YRgNOyCnbqg)

~~~
Shish2k
And anyone who knows that song from youtube is missing out on one of the best
west-end musicals ;)

------
jchw
I find it interesting that advertising on pornographic content in a lot of
English speaking countries seems difficult whereas in East Asia it does not
really seem to be an issue, or at least I’ve never heard of it being an issue.
Is this a thing or am I just ignorant? If it _is_ true, could anyone fathom
why?

~~~
syntheticnature
Part of the monetization issue, at least in the United States, is that banks
are under pressure to not do business with those involved with pornographic
content, via those who want to stamp out such things. The banks seem to be the
weak link; they'll disconnect from other payment gateways that do allow such
content, etc.

~~~
lonelappde
That's not true. Banks charge more for porn vendors because of high
chargebacks and fraud. No one boycotts banks over porn.

------
dTal
"Discontinuing support" is nice newspeak for "banning", since there's no
technical overhead for NSFW content specifically.

Their logic is weird, too - it's not like NSFW subsections make Imgur _less_
"fun and entertaining". Quite the reverse! And it's not as if you could
stumble across these - you basically had to type the URL in by hand.

------
Sargos
This is probably a good time for someone to create an image host based on IPFS
or Swarm as a replacement for imgur for these communities. There's a lot of
content on reddit like sorting by Top to see the best posts which is now
missing. That's a good chunk of the culture of some subs.

The only realistic option is to host media on the same service that's
consuming it or hosting the media on a decentralized service that you don't
have to worry about being shut down in the future.

~~~
djsumdog
IPFS seems like a really good solution. I've read other posts on here on how
it's difficult to setup websites on IPFS, but just straight up media (images
and video) seem like a perfect use case.

~~~
shantly
Practical IPFS image hosting looks an awful lot like image hosting without
IPFS. Most of your traffic's gonna be through gateways, not over IPFS proper.
You've still gotta have always-on servers pinning (storing) everything for
reliability. There also doesn't seem to be a good way to make mobile
devices—most of the clients out there—useful parts of the distributed network.

~~~
hombre_fatal
HN throws IPFS around a lot as if it's free storage + free bandwidth. But as
you point out, you still must run an origin server. At which point it's just a
slower, crappier CDN where you stand up your other CDN nodes yourself. Your
content doesn't just magically spread to random nodes once you broadcast it.

------
prvc
Is mixed SFW/NSFW social media more trouble than it's worth? Tumblr did the
same thing. Permitting NSFW may enable some promising growth stats in the
early stages, but perhaps there isn't a lot of long term value to be extracted
from it.

~~~
rpmisms
Tumblr is dying fast, because they removed their nsfw content.

~~~
Mirioron
That's the point the parent poster is making: tumblr had incredible growth at
the start and stayed popular, but it was difficult to monetize because of the
nsfw content.

~~~
elsonrodriguez
It was difficult to monetize because rather than resetting advertiser
expectations for what it means to engage with tumblr's user base, they
destroyed their product instead.

~~~
djsumdog
We don't have the internal charts of advertisement revenue and engagement.
What if they had tried a lot and that line kept shifting down and down, with
small bumps here and there with limited sales successes? What if the execs at
Verizon were like, "We don't want to keep going down that route .. we don't
want those types of advertisers .. we need to not be afraid of associating
this more with the Verizon brand?"

I have a feeling there was a lot of internal push back and fourth, but they
were either losing too much money or only getting advertisers they weren't
comfortable with.

It's more complicated that just advertisers expectations.

~~~
lonelappde
Apple locked NSFW off Tumblr via it's App Store lockdown.

[https://www.fastcompany.com/90304153/seven-weeks-after-
nsfw-...](https://www.fastcompany.com/90304153/seven-weeks-after-nsfw-ban-
tumblr-still-bulges-with-porn)

~~~
loceng
From my understanding this was due to excess or unreasonably long times to
remove child sexual abuse content.

------
loufe
An honest question: Why and who in the payment space penalizes sites for
allowing NSFW content? I can't understand why Visa, or Paypal would have moral
grounds to block that content if they also process payment for strictly-porn
sites.

~~~
Mindwipe
Paypal doesn't process such payments.

Mastercard have a huge list of arbitrary rules.

Visa and Mastercard charge significantly extra to process adult payments.

~~~
loufe
Ah thanks for the clarification. Do you know under what pretense they charge
the higher rates? I can imagine there is more fraud for adult payments, but
would they also charge higher for gambling or other fraud prone payments in
that case?

~~~
ekimekim
One story I've heard is that adult content payments have a very high rate of
chargeback, claiming it was fraud after the fact as a way of saving face when
someone else (like a spouse) sees it in their transaction history.

But as you say, adult content isn't the only high-risk business but payment
processors seem to care much more about it than others.

My guess is that it's just exactly what it looks like - a squeamishness to be
associated with activities that culture targets as "non-respectable". "If
people pay for porn with Paypal, then they'll think of Paypal as a porn
payment provider and not want to use Paypal to pay for normal things".

------
Havoc
Unfortunate but not surprising. I can see why they wouldn’t be keen on that
type of content

~~~
mrgreenfur
Agreed; but isn't this shooting them in the foot in the same way Tumblr did? I
wonder why they did this instead of adding stronger filters / controls to
separate the populations

~~~
OzzyB
Because all roads lead to Apple Store's TOS and their anti-adult content
stance. Sure they could apply stronger filters but unless they police it well
they suffer the prospect of being banned like Tumblr etc. Besides, it's not
easy implementing a scalable content filter without user support and if users
aren't cooperating then it's probably easier and cheaper to nix the idea
completely.

~~~
tyri_kai_psomi
Scratch anti-adult and substitute pro-family. Perspective matters, and that's
the approach Apple takes.

~~~
xsmasher
That should be read anti-adult-content, not anti-adult.

~~~
tyri_kai_psomi
If "ABC Family" channel didn't want to show any content that would come off as
"lewd" or "adult" would you call them wanting to maintain a family friendly
atmosphere, or anti-adult-content?

------
jimbob45
Yet another blow in the war on porn. Can we just accept that the parents need
to be the ones to act as porn gatekeepers via acting as gatekeepers to the
internet? Once the kid hits the internet, they're gonna find porn one way or
another. Changes like these don't solve anything imho.

~~~
Miner49er
Does this have anything to do with children? I figured this was for
advertising; major cooperations probably don't want their ads associated with
porn.

~~~
djsumdog
Yea, it seems more about advertisers than censorship. They need to make money
to host thing x and don't want their brand to be associated with thing y.

------
taurath
I’ve noticed they’re intentionally reducing image quality on mobile with ad
blockers lately as well.

------
sireat
For reference how imgur was started 10 years ago:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7zlyd/my_gift_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7zlyd/my_gift_to_reddit_i_created_an_image_hosting/)

A prophetic comment in OP:

[–][deleted] 21 points 10 years ago Anyone can make an image hosting service
that doesn't suck. But tell me in a year or two if you're still around and not
sucking. Then I'll consider it.

------
Endy
So, I guess Imgur has now just about announced their inevitable death. If you
uploaded pics there, I suggest getting them before they end up gone.

~~~
bluetidepro
> ...I guess Imgur has now just about announced their inevitable death.

That's extremely dramatic to say. Did you even read the full post? They aren't
doing anything unreasonable, compared to say Tumblr, and what they did. All
they are doing is putting NSFW content behind a login. Nothing is getting
deleted, or not allowed anymore.

~~~
sodosopa
Yeah I read the same thing and it’s a repeat of when Tumblr, Tripod, Yahoo
Groups, etc all started their paths to remove NSFW content.

------
reilly3000
How can image services avoid hosting child pornography? If a user submits an
image of themselves at age 17 and lies about their age, can the host be held
liable for distributing illegal content? That seems like an existential
business risk for any site that hosts nsfw. There’s no viable way to check a
user’s actual age (when depicted) under current business models. And what is
and isn’t nsfw?

It all sounds complicated.

~~~
ryanlol
It only seems that complicated because you’re applying weird HN pedantry on
fairly reasonable laws. This isn’t an existential business risk unless you’re
straight up ignoring CAM you’ve been made aware of.

This is a constant source of work for these providers, but complicated this is
not.

~~~
reilly3000
Not trying to be pedantic; it just seemed like an interesting problem. I’ll
take your word for it that it isn’t interesting:)

I don’t know how they make money. Ad rates aren’t that great and bandwidth
isn’t that cheap.

------
lol768
I'll be interested to see how they try to tackle this.

Are they going to manually identify NSFW images? Scrape known-NSFW subreddits?
Look at the Referer header?

Can just see folks on Reddit using its own built-in image upload
functionality. Imgur has been largely redundant since this was launched (and
offers an increasingly poor, ad-ridden UX full of dark patterns), to be
honest.

------
thescribbblr
Thinking to build a service to host NSFW content. Anyone who would like to
join?

~~~
Dig1t
Yeah I'm down that sounds like fun, idk how to PM you though..

~~~
thescribbblr
Awesome, man! Let's start

Email me: mshahi.biz@gmail.com

------
sdrothrock
Since you need to log in now, I wonder if they're also keeping track of which
users are viewing what content, and what subreddits etc. that content is
associated with.

------
mrunseen
Imgur blocked in Turkey so I've been using imgurp.com/[imagelink] proxy.

Thinking about if this effects my usage of Imgur?

------
lowiqprogrammer
hey I made a place where you can upload images, including NSFW that is similar
to Reddit. You can also embed them. [https://tiblar.com/](https://tiblar.com/)

------
paulie_a
Well imgur is going to die really quick

