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Yahoo Censors Tumblr Porn
coolnumbr12 writes "When Yahoo purchased Tumblr in May, Tumblr founder David Karp said Tumblr wouldn't be changing, and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said, 'Part of our strategy here is to let Tumblr be Tumblr.' But a new search policy went into effect Thursday that excludes all adult blogs from Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines by disabling indexing of anything it tags as 'adult.' The policy effectively makes the content and 10 percent of Tumblr users completely invisible."
I think the point is that they're not allowing spiders to crawl pornographic tumblrs. That affects everyone who uses a search engine that respects robots.txt.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Isn't the result the same? Whether you take it down or hide it, people who want it can't find it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I imagine a lot more interesting content is on that part of the network.
Not only Yahoo's index, they're blocking indexing for Google and Bing also. Presumably via robots.txt or similar.
2*3*3*3*3*11*251
Really? Erm, I think we should be given a list so that, you know, we can, err.., check their data-collating algorithms for accuracy. Yeah, that.
"When Yahoo purchased Tumblr in May, Tumblr founder David Karp said Tumblr wouldn't be changing, and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said, 'Part of our strategy here is to let Tumblr be Tumblr.'
Yeah, and when an independent website gets purchased by a large corporation the executives never lie to the users of a new acquisition to keep them from doing a mass exodus. After all, the users themselves are a part of the deal.
I dont think somehow this is such a bad idea. I mean, they could have just deleted all those pages really
If nobody can find them what's the difference? Is this like getting out of a speeding ticket on a technicality?
Nobody is going to publish content to places no visitors will go. That defeats the whole point of publishing.
Rendering 10% of Tumblr invisible is an improvement and a great start. Please get to work on the other 90%, too.
Host $5 website. Post redirect to tumblr. Let google index your $5 website.
Your three words are meaningless. Coprorations can't censor speach (at least in this context, what actually goes on in Washington is another matter). Claiming free speach rights within the context of a private enterprise is like claiming that your free speach rights are being infringed if I throw you out of my house after you've broken in holding a megaphone. Its astounding to me how few people understand that the 1st amendment is a contraint on GOVERNMENT, not a general use wrench you can hit anyone over the head with.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
my robots.txt contains one item which doesn't exist.
If you try to access that item your IP is added to the firewall drop list. (until the next reboot)
I don't even have much hosted, just some pictures I don't want to give to flikr.
Well, first of all, there's the question of who determines whether or not it's 'Adult' or merely 'NSFW', since they're treated differently. Since the barrier for 'adult' appears to be that you post nudity often, there are some non-pornographic photographers that are being caught in the net.
Secondly, as of right now, #gay is a verbatim search term. This affects not just porn, but posts about LGBT politics.
Thirdly, lots of artists were migrating to tumblr BECAUSE it was a way to join a network where you could be discovered by fans. Painters and cartoon artists that post pornographic art also can't be found anymore. I know more than one artist that stopped hosting their own portfolio site because it was easier to post on tumblr and provide a DNS redirect. It was a good system, and now the rug has been pulled out from under them.
This isn't just about hardcore porn; most (all?) of that stuff is discoverable through google, even if it's not packaged up as nicely. There's a lot of fandom and art going on that counts as 'adult' content, and it seems to me that it's being unfairly punished.
Plus, honestly, it's nice for users like me to be able to follow some of these people and discover new things that I like and have it all mixed in with my goofy fandom gifs and gender politics and whatnot. I LIKE how tumblr works right now. To me, this is just the puritanical nature of North American culture and law rearing its ugly head.
point is that they're not allowing spiders to crawl
No, that's tangential. The point is people have made different types of information publicly available, using a private service, and now that information is being effectively taken offline with no recourse. The content is content tagged as "NSFW" or "Adult" which could affect educational content, or content not approrpriate for minors -- which isn't always porn.
This is really falls into the broader category of censoring information which was previously publicly available. FTFA that's about 12 million sites apparently
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
It's not just blogs that feature posts tagged as "adult," it's the entirety of any blog tumblr has already flagged as NSFW or adult (the overall blog flag, not just posts). My personal photography blog has been branded as NSFW, as I sometimes post risque work. Basically, there will be no new discovery of my blog, since Tumblr's also blocked internal tag searches for such blogs as well (unless one is already following said blog). My rate of addition of new followers dropped precipitously after that. Bastards...like the occasional nipple is going to end the world.
That? That was a pigeon.
It's still a dick move, and you know it.
Some people use their blog as a source of income. That income depends on their blog having an established, searchable presence. Some of those blogs may have the kind of content (like porn) that you or other people may personally look down on.
"Just make your own blog" is a terrible option when you already *have* an established blog, because it means moving and losing a lot of your traffic.
I don't see anyone where arguing that what Yahoo is doing should be *illegal*. They're arguing that it's not a good thing to do, and I agree with them. Finally, I fail to see any good reason that they need to do it, since the major search engines all have adult content filtering already. It's unlikely that Google or Bing demanded that they de-index adult oriented blogs.
And, they are stipping the tags from those sites as well so that in internal search will not show those sites either. You have to either see their content through a reblog or if you're following them.
I got here through a series of tubes
David Karp insisted they weren't going to try and censor the adult blogs, while appearing on the Colbert Report just three days ago.
.: Semper Absurda
Free speech is the right that no coercive force will be used to stop speech. It mostly applies to government, but could apply to anyone being physically threatened for what they say.
Censorship, as is commonly used, isn't limited to free speech, but also in instances where there was an implied liberty to speak one's mind. If a television show bleeps someone out, that's called "censorship". If a library removes a book over interest group pressure, that's "censorship". If a newspaper fires a columnist for something they wrote, that's "censorship" (if said newspaper refuses to print someone's letter to the editor, though, that's distinctly not censorship).
And if Tumblr is changing their policy to restrict more forms of speech, that would be censorship.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
and make your own blog. Or use Google blogger. Or any of a thousand different ways. Why is this even news?
If generic blogs were an acceptable substitute for what Tumblr does, they wouldn't have 100 million users.
I like pr0n as much as the next guy but a Slashdot groupthink seems to be developing that any entity restricting porn is bad evil censorship.
Why is it good when it's non-governmental? The loss of utility is the same whether it's done by a government or by a corporation. It may be less bad when it's not backed up by force, but it's still a shameful act by Yahoo, and they deserve to be shamed for it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
To be classified as porn, two opinions have to be met: provokes a sexual response, and has no artistic merit.
Given that people have rather elaborate sexual fetishes, the first part can be (and is) used to classify practically any type of content as porn by at least someone. Not to mention that some people get a hardon from leather boots -- ergo leather boots are pornography? The second aspect is grossly subjective as well, as some people find art in the arrangement of trashcan contents.
Because of this, what get's classified as porn by one individual may not be classified as such by another. Strictly speaking, it becomes a scenario of "you can't look for this because I said so". Well, excuse me, but... I've outgrown the need for parenting on that level. We're basically all adults (or on the way of becoming one), and the world is ran by adults for adults. Subjecting all of us to childlike treatment is an insult.
Self expression need not be limited to original content. Self expression is completely satisfied by the following statement: "I like X" (or XXX, or whatever). Publishing is no longer a profession in of itself (types of publishing may be). Furthermore, you don't really get a say whether their point was worth making, it's subjective and irrelevant to the discussion.
While 10% of the blogs are estimated to be tagged adult.. It's actually closer to 25% of their traffic. I'm guessing internally they knew that tumblr's adult content was rising faster than the rest of the site, and they certainly don't want it to be primarily adult. It might be better for them long term, but there should be some brushback over this.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
Be fair - it's hard to think up cogent analogies for other situations when you're inside a welded box that's been encased in concrete.
I'm surprised he's got any Internet access in there at all, frankly. I'll have to figure out how that happened before the next time.
#DeleteChrome
If you're using a service for free, chances are you're not the customer.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
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Fine! I'm gonna go build my own image microblog, with blackjack and hookers!
Probably should make it distributed and censorship-resistant by design.
I propose this new site be named bendr!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Why should he? His art is his art.
Far better response would be to move all of it together to a better place, and choose some better social medium.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
No, there isn't a limit to "side blogs" as they're called (I run another one for information on my band's tour schedule). Replying to messages and following other blogs is limited to your primary blog, however.
As far as self-censoring the occasional photograph I take that might have boobs, the horse is already out of the barn. Someone at Tumblr made the call some time ago that my blog was NSFW (luckily, they recognized the difference between art and porn, and did not flag it as "adult." This NSFW flag can apparently never be changed (Tumblr has no mechanism for review or protestation of their classifications). I'd have to start completely over, and somehow convince my several thousand followers to go follow the new blog. At this point, I've got too much invested in "my brand" to deal with any of that.
That? That was a pigeon.
For a good discussion of this, see the following post at Eros blog:
http://www.erosblog.com/2013/07/19/tumblr-admits-then-denies-hiding-porn/
Eros reported on this back in May, and here has a good discussion of the evasions and falsehoods from Yahoo!
Wait, the internet still has ads?
::turns off my adblocker::
::visits a couple of sites::
::turns adblocker back on::
Oh right...wow...this has gotten a lot worse since I last checked...
Aaaahhhh...that's better.
Bits of code, random ramblings: jakimfett.com
The people with porn Tumblrs don't need to move, they just need an easy way to be found. Why not a retro, Yahoo-style directory? That's how lots of us found things before search engines got so good. Just start tumblrporn.com (lawyers permitting) and list all the blogs Yahoo doesn't want indexed, in categories. Sell ads. Profit!
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
I was thinking that too. I wasn't aware that there was anything on tumblr that wasn't porn.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});