In the wake of Tumblr’s censorship of various NSFW-friendly tags from its mobile app, we decided to take a closer look at the types of banned content to see if we could trace patterns.
Unfortunately for Tumblr’s mobile users, there seems to be inconsistency with regard to what tags are banned and why. For instance, the widely used fandom tag #yaoi is banned, but its counterpart, #boyslove, is not. Meanwhile, tags with general meanings like #facial and #amateur are banned, but #necrophilia and #kinky are not banned.
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New content restrictions enrage Tumblr users
Tumblr user gahayi reported that she was seeing banned tags redirecting to “safe” tags:
I just tried searching for “#gay.” It changed automatically to “#lgbtq.” I tried searching again, and again it changed. The same thing happened to “#bisexual,” “#lesbian,” and “#QUILTBAG.”
And some tags seem to be banned inexplicably, like “depression,” “blood,” and other terms related to mental illness and self-harm.
Screengrab via Tumblr
To give you an idea of what’s now missing from your mobile dash, here’s a list of tags that are currently censored on Tumblr’s mobile platform. Click through for what they look like (warning: NSFW!) on the Web.
1) sex
2) porn
3) gay
4) lesbian
5) bisexual
6) transsexual
7) twinks
8) BDSM
9) breasts
10 & 11) penis, vagina, and various synonyms thereof
12) bitch
13) MILF
14) facial
15) yaoi
16) hentai (similar tags like guro and yiff are not banned)
17) panties
18) suicide
19) butts
20) BBW
21) Topless Tuesday
22) threesome
23) jailbait
24) fetish
25) depression
26) cutting
27) ana (anorexic)
28) blood
29) lolita
Here are some that are OK:
1) necrophilia
2) boys love
3) guro
4) yiff (and furry-yiff)
5) kink
6) tentacles
7) squicking
8) asshole (though it looks like the mobile app does filter some porn)
9) douche
10) self-harm
Illustration by Fernando Alfonso III