Pornhub saved the bees, and now they're saving Tumblr's treasure trove of horny content. BuzzFeed News reports that Pornhub Vice President Corey Price is "extremely interested" in acquiring the microblogging platform, following its disappointing ban on NSFW content last year.
"Tumblr was a safe haven for those who wanted to explore and express their sexuality, adult entertainment aficionados included," Price told BuzzFeed reporter Ryan Broderick. "We've long been dismayed that such measures were taken to eradicate erotic communities on the platform, leaving many individuals without an asylum through which they could comfortably peruse adult content."
Tumblr is a platform literally designed for teens experimenting with sexuality. Which is why its porn ban, introduced in a rush in response to the iOS store temporarily removing the official Tumblr app after reportedly finding evidence of child pornography, has been met with a tonne of criticism. Posting "photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content — including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations — that depicts sex acts" will see your blog get flagged by Tumblr's team and reverted to a private setting.
While porn and other erotic content has always pervaded Tumblr, and the platform feels weird without it, user frustration can also be pegged to a faulty porn-detecting computer algorithm that ends up accidentally censoring a lot of completely SFW content on the site. Some bloggers have moved on to alternative online spaces like Mastodon and Pillowfort as a result.
According to SimilarWeb, Tumblr's web traffic has plummeted by 30 percent since December, the first full month of the porn ban being in place. SimilarWeb data says that Tumblr had an estimated 520 million visits in December, 436 million in January, then 369 million in February. That's a steady drop off.
Pornhub told BuzzFeed that it would reinstate NSFW content on Tumblr should a purchase go ahead. Tumblr is currently owned by Verizon Media Group, which purchased the company from Yahoo! in 2013, during the horny post golden age.
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