Limited spots remain:

Join us Dec. 1-3 in Nashville for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit

REGISTER

Tumblr Toes the Censorship Line

Deciding whether or not to censor content is a tricky matter for publishers and platforms. Facebook is notoriously quick to censor content it deems inappropriate (like pictures of two men kissing or women breast-feeding). Now Tumblr is getting in on some censorship action.

Last week Tumblr announced its new censorship policy, which bans “self-harm blogs” that glorify eating disorders. This is tricky territory, of course.

“We are deeply committed to supporting and defending our users’ freedom of speech, but we do draw some limits,” Tumblr writes in a blog post. “As a company, we’ve decided that some specific kinds of content aren’t welcome on Tumblr.”

The company has posted a draft of this addition to its content policy but is also asking the Tumblr community for its input. Do you think this move to censor is appropriate when plenty of other negative/violent/inappropriate content (like fat-bashing posts and posts about outward violence) gets the green light, as Johanna de Silento points out in her Thought Catalog article? Leave your stance in the comments.

More in Media

The Times of London is gearing up to test ‘macro payments’

The Times has a plan for readers who don’t want to subscribe.

subscribe news

Media Briefing: Publishers are selling more subscriptions to smaller audiences. The midterms are the next test.

Ahead of the U.S. midterms and with referral traffic declines, news publishers are racing to turn election interest into paying subscribers.

Creators are now classified as small businesses, but what does that actually mean?

The Small Business Administration has officially welcomed creators under its umbrella; let’s unpack what that means for brands, creators, and the economy at large.