Image copyright Getty Images Symbol caption Tumblr says greater than 164 billion posts have been placed on its platform since it was based in 2007
Tumblr is to prohibit content that ends up in the “unwanted sexualisation or sexual harassment of others”.
The social network says this comprises non-consensual “creepshots” – sexually suggestive pictures of clothed victims.
In addition, it stated it covers “deepfake” pornography, during which computer-generated photographs of a subject’s face are transplanted onto particular photos or movies of someone else’s body without permission.
The rule-amendment is due on 10 September.
Other additions to Tumblr’s group pointers include the outlawing of “gore” posted solely to shock, in addition as other “content material that encourages or incites violence, or glorifies acts of violence or the perpetrators”.
The blogging platform will nonetheless rely on its customers to flag offending content to moderators.
New owners
Activity on Tumblr used to be at its height in 2014 while Adweek magazine ranked it the world’s seventh most popular social network, prior to Snapchat.
Yahoo had purchased it for $1.1bn (£853m) the former year promising not to “screw it up”.
But Yahoo struggled to manage the platform, and ended up writing down most of its worth.
In 2017, Yahoo itself used to be received through the us telecoms firm Verizon, which positioned Tumblr inside of a brand new subsidiary referred to as Oath.
While other social networks that permit pornography – including Twitter and Reddit – had introduced tougher regulations against so-called creepshots and deepfakes, Tumblr’s regulations remained more obscure till now.
This led it to be singled out through the scoop web page Motherboard in March, which discovered that not just was the network hosting such imagery but also advice on find out how to create it.
Media caption’Deepfakes’ duvet more than simply pornography
“One Tumblr provides an in depth guide on how possible stalkers can get well quality photos, with sections on iPhones, Android gadgets, and DSLR cameras. A Google search of phrases in the guide counsel it is no longer to be had in different places online,” it reported.
Tumblr says its group of workers will remain “fierce defenders of loose expression” but introduced that the new laws were designed to protect that imaginative and prescient.
“Posting sexually explicit photos of individuals with out their consent was once by no means allowed on Tumblr, but with the discovery of deepfakes and the proliferation of non-consensual creepshots, we’re updating our neighborhood guidelines to extra obviously address new applied sciences that may be used to humiliate and threaten people,” it stated.
The transfer might help repair Tumblr’s reputation, then again it’s most likely that extra will wish to be done to opposite its decline.
One latest article about the platform likened the usage of it to “placing round a ghost the city” regardless of the fact that Tumblr still claims greater than 33 million posts are uploaded to its web page a day.
The author – tradition editor on the Define, Jeremy Gordon – stated Oath’s present technique gave the impression to be to make the enjoy of the usage of Tumblr higher for its final users rather than chasing new ones, a minimum of at this point.
“It Is exhausting to disagree with the price of discouraging hate speech, especially as we have seen how Twitter’s total failure to deal with a similar drawback has slowly shifted perception of the platform,” he told the BBC.
“But as with all such things as this it’s in the execution – both consistency and the flexibility to grasp no longer all eventualities are the similar.
“at the very least, it is good to discourage any doable new users who’d simplest join to result in this type of hassle.”
