Editorials

Tumblr Sold for $3 million..

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20 August 2019

By Bronwen

As predicted by the site’s (former) users, Tumblr’s ban on NSFW content has been catastrophic in terms of the value of the platform.

In 2013, Yahoo bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion. At this time, it was a safe space for millions of users who could express themselves via their own blog.

Anti-censorship used to be a core principle of Tumblr. This meant that the rules regarding nudity and sexual content were extremely liberal to the point where virtually anything could be posted on the site.

Abuse of Tumblr’s relaxed rules allegedly led to the blanket ban on all NSFW content.

What followed in the weeks after the ban was a mass Exodus of Tumblr users to other platforms. Millions of posts were removed under the new rules and hundreds of blogs were deleted. Back in March, we reported that since the ban, one-fifth of users deserted the site. Unfortunately for the ex-users, no other platform exists which gives users the freedom to post whatever they like and is as user-friendly as Tumblr.

Of course, the plummeting number of users has taken its toll on the value of Tumblr. It has just been sold for $3 million to WordPress owner Automattic.

Will the new owners of Tumblr reverse its NSFW content ban or will they plough on and hope to rebrand the site?

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