Tumblr NSFW Content Purge

The Tumblr NSFW Content Purge refers to a late 2018 incident in which Tumblr's iOS app was removed from the App Store, and numerous blogs with NSFW content subsequently deleted, due to a reported issue with child pornography. Eventually a full ban on visual NSFW content was announced by Tumblr.
The incident took place not three months after The Snappening, another event in which Tumblr fan blogs were purged, this time for copyright-related reasons.
==The Beginning: App Disappearance and Child Pornography Revelations==
On November 16, 2018, Tumblr's iOS app suddenly vanished from the App Store, with no information available as to why it had disappeared. The app was initially unavailable to users with parental controls enabled, and then completely unavailable."The reason Tumblr vanished from the App Store: Child pornography that slipped through the filters", Download.com. Published November 20, 2018 (Accessed November 21, 2018). Tumblr initially stated only that it was "working to resolve an issue with the iOS app and hope[d] to be fully functional again soon."
However, apps website Download.com approached Tumblr with independent sources claiming that the app was removed "due to child pornography that got past the site's filters". When confronted with this evidence, Tumblr made a public statement confirming that the issues were related to child pornography on its platform.November 16, 2018: Issues with the iOS app, Tumblr. Accessed November 21, 2018.
==Fan Blogs Are Affected==
Around November 19, 2018, distraught fans began reporting on Twitter and Tumblr that their blogs had been deleted without warning. The affected blogs appeared to be primarily art blogs with NSFW content, although SFW blogs were also affected. Users on Twitter and Tumblr coined the hashtag #tumblrpurge to tag their accounts of blog removals and discuss the purge as well as blog retrieval strategies.
However, some were sceptical about how widespread the purge actually was (versus how much was rumour and hysteria). On November 20, copperbadge responded to an Ask on his Tumblr:
Although the purge seemed to be affecting a minority of fan blogs, it was significant enough to be causing serious distress to the users affected, not least because of similarities to numerous past purges of "inappropriate" fannish content by platforms like LiveJournal (see Strikethrough and Boldthrough), Fanfiction.net (see FanFiction.net's NC-17 Purges), and Quizilla (see Regarding the Citrus Content for one such example).
Some fans were successful in contacting Tumblr staff to have their blogs restored,Tweet by @The_Shonosha, November 20, 2018 (Accessed November 24, 2018). but others either received no response or were outright refused. jaspurrlock, a fanartist posting NSFW art of characters from Voltron: Legendary Defender and Boku No Hero Academia, was one well-known example: upon contacting Tumblr support, she received a response from the Tumblr Trust & Safety Team claiming that her blog featured “inappropriate content involving or depicting minors” and handing out a “final” termination that banned her from the site.NSFW artists speak out as their accounts are suddenly ‘purged’ on Tumblr, The Daily Dot. Published November 20, 2018 (Accessed November 24, 2018). jaspurrlock published the responses from Tumblr staff to her Twitter account (account tweets protected), which attracted a number of supportive tweetsTweet by @bakukatty, November 20, 2018.Tweet by @thatotakutho, November 19, 2018. along with a great deal of flaming, harassment and vitriol from users who believed the ban was deserved.Tweet by @hambubungus, November 21, 2018.Tweet by @salemgriffin, November 21, 2018.Tweet by @fribbin, November 20, 2018.
Users began noting down details that the affected blogs had in common, in order to get a sense of what Tumblr would and would not permit on its platform (as Tumblr itself was not offering clarity on this issue). Some theorised that external links were an issue,okay so by dadbyul, Tumblr. Published November 19, 2018 (Accessed November 24, 2018). or that popular blogs were affected due to the porn bots that frequently reblogged them.For those unaware because staff isn’t saying it, Tumblr. Published November 19, 2018 (Accessed November 25, 2018). On November 21, freedom-of-fanfic posted a response to an Anonymous ask:
===Intentional, or a Glitch?===
Fans were divided over whether Tumblr's deletion of a number of innocent blogs - either those which posted NSFW art that didn't depict minors in any way, or those which posted exclusively SFW art - was intentional, the result of a heavy-handed approach to removing the real pornography from its platform, or a technical glitch.
[[File:Tumblr titanic.png|thumb|200px|left|Graphic created by wolfskies25. The caption on Tumblr reads:
An idea that me and @becomehomeagain had about this whole Tumblr Porn Bot Purge scenario. 
Iceberg hitting the Titanic = Porn bots invading Tumblr
Lifeboats carrying people away from the ship = Tumblr users being deleted
Person in the bottom corner just watching = The staff not giving a sh*t about the anger of their users
.. Pretty fitting, no?]]
However, most users agreed that the biggest issue wasn't with Tumblr's over-enthusiastic removals of blogs, but with the complete lack of any communication or updates on the unfolding situation. In particular, many people pointed out that if there had been a change in Tumblr's Terms of Service that meant previously-compliant blogs were now not in compliance, Tumblr was legally obliged to communicate this to its userbase.
Others pointed out that Tumblr's implementation was chaotic and lacked human review. For example, fan art that depicted robots having sex with tentacle monsters was deleted for bestiality, which led one fan to mourn that even Hollywood Oscar award winning movies were at risk:
When the artist attempted to explain to Tumblr that the "characters" were cartoon dinosaur robots, they were told: ""This termination is final, and replies to this message will not be reviewed." Re: I bless the wank down in tumblr thread (accessed Nov 25. 2018)
Disabled users were also impacted. One fan wrote:
Even text based blogs were deleted, undercutting the argument that Tumblr's primary focus was child porn images:
Complicating matters was Tumblr's shadow ban of certain keyword searches that could have assisted in ascertaining the extent of the impact: searches for "tumblr purge" led to no results. Other banned searches included "fandom wank" possibly due to one of the words also having sexual connotation in the UK. The list of search terms blanked included: ""breast cancer," "safe sex" and "chronic pain". 
Perhaps one fan summed it up best: 
===Assistance with Archiving===
A group calling itself the Archive Team started an initiative to help archive Tumblr's endangered blogs in the wake of the purge. On December 4, 2018, a day after the official ban on adult content, a Tumblr blog called 17decemberarchive published a post entitled Save endangered tumblrs before 17. December, which read:
The team also created a hashtag for the archiving effort, #tumbledown.We, the archive team, think that petitions will change nothing. by 17decemberarchive via Tumblr, published December 5, 2018 (Accessed December 9, 2018). Archive link On December 7, the team announced that it had reached 500 submissions of endangered blogs.We reached over 500 submissions but the speed is slowing a little. by 17decemberarchive via Tumblr, published December 7, 2018 (Accessed December 9, 2018). Archive link For more about this effort, see .
A group of Redditors led by itdnhr also set out to archive any NSFW blogs that had been submitted to Reddit and were still live. itdnhr compiled an initial list of 67,000 blogs that had been submitted over the past 7 years, of which 43,000 were found to still be online.List of 67k NSFW Tumblrs submitted to Reddit in the last 7 years, sorted by frequency. by itdnhr via Reddit. Published December 4, 2018 (Accessed December 15, 2018).
====Archiving Attempts Blocked by Tumblr====
On December 15, 2018, Jason Scott - founder of the Archive Team - tweeted that the team's efforts to archive blogs were being blocked by Tumblr staff:
Other users running their own archiving efforts also tweeted to report that they had been blocked or banned by Tumblr., posted December 15, 2018., posted December 15, 2018.
* by Ana Valens for "Daily Dot" (December 19, 2018)
==Rumours of Tumblr Shutdown==
As word spread about Tumblr's app disappearing from the App Store, rumours began to circulate that the site might be on the verge of shutting down. Some noticed that Tumblr staff appeared to have stopped responding for requests to restore purged blogs, and wondered if there might be a link.
==Tracking The Fallen and The Missing==
===Blogs===
*An Incomplete List of People Affected by the Recent Tumblr Purge Nov. 26th, 2018 by queso_amigo archive.is link
* 
* 
*fail-fandomanon list of deleted blogs from the first wave dated Nov 20, 2018
===Tags===
====Sexual Tags====
*rimming
*safe sex
====Fandom Tags====
*Avalance
*Chase Stein
*Dick Simmons
*Falice (tag for Riverdale pairing FP Jones/Alice Cooper) - deleted then reinstated 
*hentai
*het
*JayDick (but not DickJay)
*Nico Minoru
*SteveTony (but not Stony)
*Undertail (dedicated NSFW tag for Undertale)
*yaoi
*TsunadeReblog with screencaps Archived
====Other Tags====
*Chronic pain
*tumblr purge
*breast cancer
*sexual attraction
====Sample "Flags"====
* "FUCKING THIS POST ITSELF IS FLAGGED, I’M DYING! @staff YOUR BS IS KILLING ITSELF!!!!"FUCKING THIS POST ITSELF IS, December 3, 2018. archive link (Accessed December 20, 2018)
* "ok so our titty choices are now: cubism, jpeg, manga, and Picasso’s Blue Period"ok so our titty choices are now, December 4, 2018. archive link (Accessed December 20, 2018)
* "Opabinia has been extinct for 497,000,000 slutty, slutty years."From my Drafts. Dirty, dirty, December 4, 2018. archive link (Accessed December 20, 2018)
* "IT GOT FUCKING FLAGGED I’M SCREAMING" / "They’re fearing our resistance"Never thought I'd die fighting side by side with a kink blog, December 5, 2018. archive link (Accessed December 20, 2018)
* "So here's something. Users are testing the limits of Tumblr's new algorithm that flags adult content (aka "censorbot"). This one found that a man's chest was flagged, but a man's chest next a 50% scale owl went unnoticed."Users are testing the limits of Tumblr's new algorithm, December 7, 2018. archive link (Accessed December 20, 2018)
* "They’re using a fucking one-layer unidirectional bicategory tag-trained neural network. This will never work. Literally, it will never work. There’s just not enough algorithmic complexity to do what they’re asking of it. I bet you I could prove on a mathematical level that this joke of a neural net fundamentally lacks the abstraction necessary to do its job."Once, I encountered the funny story of an AI image descriptor with a sheep obsession., December 11, 2018. archive link (Accessed December 20, 2018)
* "This post was flagged because somewhere in your reblog there might be adult content." (December 18, 2018)
==Adult Content Banned==
On December 3, 2018, Tumblr announced that a full NSFW ban would go into effect on December 17, banning "photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content—including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations—that depicts sex acts." Staff specified that users could still freely post "exposed female-presenting nipples in connection with breastfeeding, birth or after-birth moments, and health-related situations, such as post-mastectomy or gender confirmation surgery", as well as "Written content such as erotica, nudity related to political or newsworthy speech, and nudity found in art, such as sculptures and illustrations".Adult content, Tumblr staff, December 3 2018
Prior to December 2018, Tumblr's official stance on the posting of "adult content" was:
In December, this changed: 
Tumblr CEO Jeff D’Onofrio authored a post on the staff blog regarding the December 2018 policy change, titling it "A better, more positive Tumblr":
Detailed guidelines linked to "A better, more positive Tumblr": (December 3).
D’Onofrio expressed that this new policy did not have anything to do with the issue of child pornography, but many users were doubtful of that.
Deanna Echanique, a Tumblr user and professional romance/erotica artist, wrote this in response to D’Onofrio's post:
Another artist, Luke/Takoto responded thus:
On December 4, 2018, greywash posted State of the Migration: On fannish archival catastrophes, and what happens next on Dreamwidth, with developing conversations in comments:
Some users wished to continue to post and reblog NSFW content that had avoided being flagged, but there was uncertainty on how to tag it, since tag searches for terms such as "R18" or "NSFW" were blocked. Posts began to circulate about bringing back the term "lemon" as a NSFW tagTumblr thread by deathdaydungeon and just-things-i-like-mostly, January 29, 2019 (Archive link), and some content creators actually implemented this.
==In 2019: A New Wave of Tag Eradication==
[perhaps some info from the talk page]?
==In 2021: Tagpocalypse==
In December 2021, Tumblr announced changes to their iOS app. This would ultimately lead to iOS app users being unable to access certain tags. Android users and users accessing through a browser appeared to be unaffected. The list of banned words was widely shared online and included several innocuous words and phrases that resulted in many memes. The word 'girl' and the phrase 'I love you' were both banned. This particular event has been referred to as tagpocalypse, girlpurge, tagpurge and tumblrpurge2.
A tumblr user and former Tumblr staffer screegs created a widely shared post outlining what had probably happened behind the scenes to result in this current predicament.alright let’s talk about Apple and Tumblr’s current predicament, Tumblr post by screegs, Dec 26th, 2021. This post may have influenced opinions, with many users expressing their dissatisfaction with Apple's censorship and (possibly) less ire directed at Tumblr's implementation than appeared in previous Tumblr NSFW content purges. #ios was the tag that trended on the 27th and 28th of December.
This had a considerable impact on certain fannish communities. The list of banned words/phrases included:
* All tags used by the Whump community on Tumblr
* Alec Lightwood, one half of the Malec ship; the dominant pairing within The Mortal Instruments and Shadowhunters fandoms
There was also huge criticism for the banning of words used to highlight racism, antisemitism and other social justice issues.
Fan activity related to this purge include many memes, with Supernatural believed to be trending due to the number of SPN memes used to react to the purge. There were also [Fandom] + Banned Words gifsets. In these fanworks, fans created gifsets for a particular fandom where each gif represented a particular or various banned words. The banned word(s) were included as text in the image of the gif. Banned words were not added as tags or text in the content of these posts, presumably to avoid censorship of the gifsets.
==Naming the Purge==
There have been many proposed names, partly because nobody could settle on one, and partly because tumblr kept hiding posts using various anti-tumblr tags. Some proposed names/tags include:
tumblrpocalypse, tumbldown, strikethrough 2.0, tumblr purge, tumblrpurge, tumblragnarok
==Log Off Protest== 
A protest of the new policy was planned for the same day that the ban on adult content would be implemented. The protest was dubbed the "Log Off Protest" because it involved Tumblr users pledging to log off from the site and stay logged off for 24 hours, thereby (in theory) causing Tumblr's traffic to take a huge hit, and showing staff how users felt about the new policy. 
The protest was originally proposed by dbdspirit on December 3, 2018, who wrote in a Tumblr post:
The protest began at 12am EST on the morning of December 17, 2018 (5am UTC).24 hour ‘log off’ protest against Tumblr porn ban, but will it help?, Piunika Web. Published December 5, 2018. Accessed December 17, 2018Tumblr users’ log off 2018 protest begins as adult content ban comes into force, PiunikaWeb. Published December 17, 2018. Accessed December 17, 2018. Another name for the protest was LogOff2018, with protesters using the hashtag #logoff2018. A Tumblr and Twitter were created to publish updates about the protest.
On December 18, 2018, 12:00am EST, the Tumblr blog created for the protest made a post announcing the end of the 24-hour log off protest, and hinting at more waves of protests to come.logoffprotest (December 18, 2018), "The Log Off Protest is officially OVER!", Tumblr. Accessed December 18, 2018.
File:Tumblr log off protest.png|A graphic created by dbdspirit to announce the time and date of the protest
File:Logoff1.JPG|Top part of December 18, 2018 post at logoffprotest.tumblr
File:Loggoff2.JPG|Bottom part of December 18, 2018 post at logoffprotest.tumblr
File:December 17 protest graphic.png|A graphic used to signal that a blog was participating in the December 17 protest. With no reblogs or new posts to push it down, on December 17 many people's dashboards filled up with the graphic, showing that the blogs they followed were all "logged off".
==Tumblr Staff Respond==
On December 17, 2018, the day that the ban on adult content went into effect, Tumblr Staff published a lengthy post addressing the widespread user dissatisfaction with the policy. Some points that the post covered included:
*Emphasising that the content ban would hide, and not delete, posts in violation of the new policy
*Reiterating that Tumblr would continue to be "home to marginalized communities"
*Reassuring users that the automated tools involved in flagging posts would improve, in response to the countless examples of posts that had been erroneously flagged
*Reiterating some of the examples of content that was still permitted (such as written erotica and artistic nudity) and specifying some exceptions that might need to be appealed if they were misclassified
The post included a reference to the much-ridiculed term "female-presenting nipples" with the aside "(yeah, we know you hate this term)", and was signed off with a "<3".
It also contained some visual examples of imagery that was still permitted within the policy, including an image of artistic nudity, an image of a mammogram, an image of a breastfeeding woman, and an image of some topless protestors.Hey Tumblr– by Tumblr Staff. Published December 17, 2018 (Accessed December 18, 2018). 
However, many Tumblr users were unimpressed with this statement, pointing out that it changed nothing of substance about such a damaging policy,Tweet by @GamingStitcher, posted December 17, 2018Reblog by celestial-sugar via Tumblr. Published December 18, 2018 (Accessed December 18, 2018). and that there was no substantive difference between posts being deleted and posts being "hidden" so that they couldn't be accessed.Tweet by @logoffprotest, posted December 17, 2018Tweet by @lanikedvesen, posted December 17, 2018 Others pointed out the irony of acknowledging users' dislike of the term "female-presenting nipples" yet continuing to use it,Tweet by @rd_doodles, posted December 17, 2018Tweet by @RawLoadsTaken, posted December 17, 2018Tweet by @homodachii, posted December 17, 2018 and some were also irritated by the heart used at the end of the post.Tweet by @mintsui, posted December 17, 2018https://twitter.com/vantastrange/status/1074743286097678337 Tweet by @vantastrange], posted December 17, 2018 To cap it all off, users who posted the exact same images that Tumblr had used as an example of permitted content found that they were flagged by the algorithm.Tumblr's Porn Filter Flags Its Own Examples of 'Permitted' Nudity by Hudson Hongo, Gizmodo. Published December 17, 2018 (Accessed December 18, 2018).
==Appeals Regarding Flagged Content==
===Good Luck in Your Hunt===
Good luck on finding what's been flagged. From a fan in late December 2018: 
===Tumblr Removes Appeal Button===
Sometime on, or before, December 19, 2018, Tumblr removed the appeal button that users could use to contact staff regarding their flagged content. 
A few days later, a fan posted some complicated directions about a workaround. (December 22, 2018). Another fan added: "This only works if you are the original poster. If you reblogged someone else’s post and it is flagged, you must contact them directly and they must follow this process to submit an appeal. I do not know what happens to your reblog if they win their appeal." -- 
==Leaving Tumblr==
===Tutorials for Leaving Tumblr===
====Making Back-ups & Moving Elsewhere====
*
*
*
*
====Dreamwidth Tutorials====
*
*
===Welcome Posts from Other Sites===
* (Nov 20, 2018, precedes Tumblr's Dec 3 announcement)
* (Dec 3, 2018)
* (Dec 3, 2018)
* (Dec 4, 2018) "Pornhub steals sex-workers’ labour, monetizes it, and gives them nothing back. It drives down the price of their work, and forces them to make more dangerous choices to get the same compensation. Maybe don’t hand fandom over to them." -- (Dec 5, 2018) (Mar 18, 2018) 
*
*
*
*
===Migration to Other Platforms===
A number of users made the decision to move away from Tumblr as a result of the purge, or to point their followers towards their presence on other sites in case they fell afoul of the purge.
Twitter was the most popular choice as a site with a permissive stance towards adult material, and one where most people already had accounts. Some other fans, particularly those with experience of journal communities such as LiveJournal and Dreamwidth, advocated migrating to Dreamwidth as a long-standing, fandom-friendly alternative to Tumblr. (This was also not the first time that a migration from Tumblr to Dreamwidth had been suggested).
However, the idea of a move to Dreamwidth was less popular among fans whose primary experience of fandom was through Tumblr (which has a very different set of features and fannish behaviours), and among artists, as Dreamwidth's support for image hosting was less than robust. A popular alternative was Pillowfort, a fan-friendly crowdfunded blogging platform whose interface fused elements of Tumblr and LiveJournal.
Pillowfort capitalised on this interest with a November 20 tweet referencing Tumblr's "shenanigans":
However, shortly afterwards, Pillowfort discovered a security weakness which prompted the site to go offline for maintenance for several days, hobbling the ability of fans to migrate to its community.Posted by freedom-of-fanfic, Tumblr. Published November 23, 2018 (Accessed November 24, 2018). Fans also expressed doubts about Pillowfort as an alternative to Tumblr based on its unclear Terms of Service surrounding content moderation, lack of GDPR compliance, use of PayPal, and the fact that its .io domain precluded it from hosting adult or sexual content.Tweet by @lizbarr, posted December 3, 2018Tweet by @lizbarr, posted December 4, 2018NIC.IO Domain Registration Rules: "No .IO domain may be used, directly or indirectly, for any purpose that is sexual or pornographic or that is against the statutory laws of any Nation. In the event of the Registry being advised by any party that a specific site breaches this condition then the Registry reserves the right to immediately deactivate the offending registration."
On the same day that Tumblr announced its permanent ban of all adult content, the Dreamwidth admin team published a news post entitled 'Welcome to Dreamwidth, Tumblr folks!' aimed at reassuring incoming Tumblr users that Dreamwidth permitted adult content, was 100% user-focused with no advertiser interests, and was working on improving many of the site's weaknesses such as the website experience on mobile.Welcome to Dreamwidth, Tumblr folks!, dw_news, Dreamwidth. Published December 3, 2018 (Accessed December 4, 2018). Tumblr user saixnipples created a Dreamwidth community called the-great-tumblr-purge for "Tumblr refugees" to connect to one another. Some other fans created Dreamwidth tutorials aimed at familiarising Tumblr users with the site.
As suggestions for websites to migrate to proliferated, some fans began rounding up lists of options. One such list by curantodraws, a 'quick guide to the Tumblr NSFW apocalypse', suggested Pillowfort, Twitter, Mastodon, Newgrounds and Hentaifoundry, a website for posting adult art.Quick guide to the Tumblr NSFW apocalypse, curantodraws via Tumblr. Posted December 3, 2018 (Accessed December 4, 2018). Piczel.tv, a streaming and image hosting website, published a Tumblr post "offer[ing] up our services as an alternative to Tumblr’s arbitrary shadowbans, deletions, and general stupidity" and announcing that its gallery upload size restriction had been removed, effective immediately.We at Piczel.tv are sad to see Tumblr’s stance against NSFW artists, piczeltv via Tumblr. Published December 3, 2018 (Accessed December 4, 2018)>. Many fans also flocked to individual fandom Discord servers.Tweet by @debwalshweb, posted December 4, 2018.Tweet by @JaneErikaBrady, posted December 4, 2018.Flarrowverse Shipyard, Discord Server Open Invitation 15 December 2018, accessed 17 December 2018. Sharesome positioned itself as an alternative geared specifically towards adult content.
===A Network Of Our Own===
As Tumblr's initial purge of NSFW blogs (prior to the adult content ban being officially announced) gathered steam, some fans raised the need for an "AO3 for communities",Note by amaluelmwood: What’s pillowfort? I only started hearing about it when this purge started, I feel like I missed something - though I do feel like we need something like what AO3 did cor fanfic, but for art and community…Reblog by samshinechester: I’m considering going back to DW or LJ, but as I was saying yesterday, an Ao3 based social platform would kick ass. I’m really tired of packing & moving every X years, ffs. referencing the way that Archive of Our Own was set up to provide a safe, maximally inclusive space for fanworks and allow fans to own the servers, on the heels of incidents like FanLib and Strikethrough and Boldthrough. For more on this, see: An Archive Of One's Own (post by astolat).
On December 4 2018, the day after Tumblr announced its ban on adult content, the Organization for Transformative Works' Tumblr posted an official statement in response to the many calls for the OTW to develop a social network:
The post continued with some advice on how to preserve and archive endangered Tumblr blogs.
On December 5, user pearwaldorf tweeted, initially jokingly, about reaching out to Pinboard to develop a new space. Pinboard developer Maciej Cegłowski then contacted pearwaldorf indicating a willingness to help.Tweet by @pearwaldorf, December 5, 2018. 
That same day, Greywash's post "State of the Migration: On fannish archival catastrophes, and what happens next" spun off into a Dreamwidth community, post_tumblr_fandom, created to discuss building a fannish social network.
====Distributed/Federated Fandom====
Intertwined with the Fandom Platform of the Future discussion and movement was a growing movement towards a distributed, or federated, fandom social network. Another "post-Tumblr" blog, Fandom After Tumblr, run by Sareniel, linked to explanations of federated social networksFederation: social media potlucks! by fandom-after via Tumblr. Published December 19, 2018 (Accessed December 27, 2018). and Hubzilla, a favoured decentralised open-source social media platform.Update on Hubzilla! by fandom-after via Tumblr. Published December 19, 2018 (Accessed December 27, 2018). The post_tumblr_fandom Dreamwidth also began serialising a newsletter, 'Fandom gets closer to the metal' (cross-posted to Fandom After Tumblr), which contained regular updates about Hubzilla and federated fandom. 
pearwaldorf and demitas created a Federated Fandom Wiki to provide information to fans about federation, describing the advantages of distributed social media for fandom.What Is Federation, Federated Fandom Wiki. Accessed December 28, 2018.
Fans also gathered, discussed ideas and co-ordinated their efforts on the distributed_fandom Discord.
==Further Reading/Meta/Fanworks In Response==
===Articles===
*Tumblr was removed from Apple’s App Store over child pornography issues, article by Jon Porter at The Verge (Nov 20, 2018)
*NSFW artists speak out as their accounts are suddenly ‘purged’ on Tumblr, article by Ana Valens at Daily Dot (Nov 20, 2018)
*Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th, article by Shannon Liao at The Verge (Dec 3, 2018)
* Tumblr is already flagging innocent posts as porn by Shannon Liao at The Verge (Dec 3, 2018)
* Tumblr porn. You made me who I am.; archive link by John Paul Brammer for the Washington Post (Dec 4, 2018)
*When Tumblr bans porn, who loses?; archive link by Kaitlyn Tiffany for Vox (Dec 4, 2018)
* another archive link by Sean Captain (Dec 12, 2018)
* (2019)
===Fan Reactions & Discussion===
====Meta====
* State of the Migration: On fannish archival catastrophes, and what happens next by Greywash (Dec 4, 2018)
* It’s gonna be ok by cupidsbower (Dec 4, 2018)
* On fandom content and policing by fozmeadows (Dec 5, 2018)
* (Dec 6, 2018)
* . official post from Organization for Transformative Works (Dec 12, 2018)
====Fan Songs====
* Filk on FFA archive link archive link with context
* Soon, Tumblr as we know it will change… but before that happens, I just want to say… (archive link) - A filk posted prior to the official ban on adult content, looking back on the idiosyncracies and in-jokes of Tumblr fandom
====NSFW Ban Memes====
In response to the impending NSFW ban, many users made reference to the "horny people have no rights" meme. A new meme also emerged due to the unusual language of "female-presenting nipples" used in Tumblr's helpdesk article:
Another meme was screenshots of the red "Your post was flagged as explicit" and "This reblog was flagged" warning labels, which often appeared on totally non-explicit image posts.http://elnarez.tumblr.com/post/180762033514/mister-stark-i-dont-feel-so-good The "Your post was flagged" meme featured in a round-up of 2018 memes, which was posted to Tumblr by thehufflepuffshuffle - ironically, the round-up was itself then flagged as "explicit". 
====Vids====
* Tumblr Titanic Vid by jackcrumsontheinternet (December 13, 2018)
*Tumblr CEO: No More Porn: A parody vid created by CollegeHumor which depicts Tumblr "CEO" "Harry Pancake" discussing Tumblr's new SFW ("Safe, Fun and Wholesome") policy, and then discovering the realities of his porn-filled website. He references the site's new "extremely clarified nipple policy." While not a fan-created video, the parody makes numerous references to fandom, including mentions of furry fandom, a Sherlock Holmes High School AU fanfiction, a reference to Sam Gamgee and Frodo Baggins living together in domestic bliss, an "excerpt" from an explicit Harry/Dobby Harry Potter fanfic: "Harry Potter and the Wand of Impossible Girth," and Rule 34.
* Tumblr Promotional Video 2018 (archive link): A parody video created by @mens-rights-activia featuring @spermian, lampshading Tumblr's overzealous flagging and negligence regarding porn bots and white supremacists.
* Compilation vid (archive link): A compilation of nearly every meme, reaction and post surrounding the NSFW purge, set to Offenbach's Infernal Galop, a.k.a. the Can-Can music.
====GIFs, Manips and Fanart====
* dirty Destiel art with the tumblr logo as a dick archive link
* googly eyes boobs on old painting plus discussion of why the art was controversial back in the day Wayback; archive link
* truth coming out of her well w/ tumblr's refusal to unflag archive link
** truth coming out of her well to shame mankind (tumblr safe version) aka with truth completely removed. archive link
* anthro tumblr and friends pornhub and facebook archive link
* my joke that only a few people got :( archive link
* why would x do this meme archive link
* exit 12 off ramp meme archive link
**another version archive link
* is this a butterfly meme archive link
**another version archive link
* thanos meme archive link
* THIS IS HOW LIBERTY DIES archive link
* LotR meme archive link
* The Good Place archive link
* Chekhov archive link
* Captain America archive link
* text meme archive link
* Parks and Rec archive link
* Lady with hammer archive link
* Presentation archive link
**another version archive link
* Tired archive link
* Any Picture archive link
* tumblr=titty archive link
* not in my lobby archive link
* Drax archive link
* open toed shoes archive link
* archive link - Frollo 
* Esmeralda, wtih Frollo response archive link
* Arrested for horny archive link
* Shrek archive link
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==Sale to Automattic==
On 12 August 2019, it was announced that Verizon would be selling Tumblr to Automattic, the parent company behind Wordpress, just two years after acquiring the site in its purchase of Yahoo.Verizon is selling Tumblr to WordPress’ owner, The Verge. Published August 12, 2019 (Accessed August 14, 2019). Fannish glee ensued as it was revealed that Tumblr was sold for "less than $3 million", a significant writedown on the $1.1 billion that Yahoo paid to acquire Tumblr in 2013.Tweet by Dan Primack, posted August 12, 2019 (Accessed August 14, 2019). Jokes about the purchase referenced Tumblr's purge of NSFW contentTweet by @symmering, posted August 13, 2019 (Accessed August 14, 2019)., with one Twitter user commenting that "They could have gotten more from a gofundme of tumblr users who just want their porn back."Tweet by @aspirational_no, posted August 12, 2019 (Accessed August 14, 2019). Comparisons were also drawn to Maciej Cegłowski's infamous purchase of former fannish hub Delicious (which was also owned by Yahoo from 2005-2011) for $35,000.The only thing that could possibly add to the schadenfreude of the Tumblr sale... by shinelikethunder via Tumblr. Published August 12, 2019 (Accessed August 14, 2019).
Following the sale announcement, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg confirmed that he intended to keep Tumblr's ban on NSFW content in place.oh fucking boy by Montydragon via Tumblr. Published August 12, 2019 (Accessed August 14, 2019).
==References==
Category:2018 Tumblr
Category:2018 Events
Category:Fandom Migration
Category:Social Media Feature