No, I think I was wrong that Tumblr is back on the app store. I obviously didn’t read whatever article properly; Tumblr said Apple pulled the app because they were failing to censor kiddie porn, but they didn’t say when they’d resolve that.
Though, AFAIA there’s still no reason to think that Apple are the cause of this policy. I doubt being in Apple’s app store could possibly help Tumblr’s user retention as much as banning bikini secrets will harm them. (And the iOS app is little different to tumblr’s web UX anyway).
I could be wrong; it’d be good to know. I have seen a sort-of-dating social site crack down on “explicit content” because they were bringing out an iOS app, even though Apple’s published rules didn’t appear to require it. So at the very least Apple do need to be clear what they will and won’t reject (albeit, developers need to consult Apple’s developer portal rather than third-hand rumors on reddit and stackoverflow).
Anyway, the world really doesn’t need input from any giant American businesses regarding sex.
The plugin @Sludge mentioned didn’t work for me when I moved my two tumblrs into one WordPress. That was a while ago, YMMV etc. I ended up writing my own script, maybe it will be useful to someone.
Maybe. Apple’s app store is a major market though, so I’d be surprised if it wasn’t at least part of the consideration. My experience with big companies like Verizon are that they don’t always make what appear to be rational decisions. We can only speculate on why though.
Well they sent me one email approving one image, but they quietly approved 95% of my other flagged images. Still pending are some that are apparently hard to call (for their first pass human moderators) that are demonstrably okay by Instagram standards, as they were posted to tumblr from Instagram.
Anyone who thinks Congress didn’t realize that FOSTA/SESTA will go a long way toward killing the internet for most regular people, you are fools. They knew damn good and well the fallout from such acts would destroy much of the internet’s usefulness for anyone but large corporations; that’s why they did it. The government is scared shitless thinking about a means of communication that allows potential dissenters to organize quickly and easily, and they have long been determined to ruin the internet by any means they could find. And many Congresswhores are either themselves reactionary bible thumpers or they depend on those throwbacks for reelection. This is just the beginning.
There may be some truth into that. App users bring in more revenue, especially when the app also spies on you. The tumblr “subculture” may have been predominantly using x-kit and add blockers.
Maybe I can make an analogy. Walled gardens like tumblr, facebook, etc… are like a mall. They have what looks like public space with plants, benches, etc… But they are not public. The person paying for the lights is only interested in shoppers. If you try to have a community meeting on one of the benchs which looks as if it was put for that purpose, you will find out sooner or later that you were never really welcome.
Perhaps. But it’s simpler than that. For better or worse the Apple app ecosystem lies at the nexus of internet enabled applications and content. Relevance and visibility there conveys a wider reach in a way that effectively renders other markets peripheral to it.
This whole thing is ridiculous .
I see a lot of artists (not necessarily doing erotic art BTW) run away to other platforms like Instagram or Twitter, but it’s really a short term solution. Instagram is already a really prude place, tolerating really few nipples, and twitter can have a tantrum like that at any time.
Of for God sakes. That porn was / is on Tumblr IS NOT a problem. You are not the first, nor likely the last, to somehow ignore that porn is literally EVERYWHERE on the internet and takes absolutely ZERO effort to find with one click.
But it was a problem at Tumblr, somehow. As if a kid would stumble across porn on Tumblr but magically be shielded from it everywhere else is unbelievably naive. If you don’t want your kid seeing porn on the internet, you need to take definitive action to do so. Not rely on Tumblr and, apparently, every single other website on the internet (oh wait, what about Twitter?) to do it for you.
Right. They make decisions as a committee, as risk averse as possible and focused like a laser on the bottom line, or at least, their sterilized perception of the bottom line.
This is absolutely related to their removal from the App Store, though without much effort, they seem to have concluded the only way to prevent child porn is to ban all adult content, despite the fact that unlike Disqus has for simple comments, they do not have a simple tool for reporting child porn.
I wish it weren’t, but while the Android ecosystem has been ascendant, Apple’s still eclipses it when it comes to development and reach. I suspect it’s not the relative size - after all, you can get more apps on Android than iOS - but the way in which Apple proactively curates it’s app store and the fact that you can develop an app that works on every iOS device equally well while Android with it’s many custom distributions can be more of a headache. My understanding from programmer associates is that if you’re a mobile developer today, Apple isn’t as important as it used to be, but it’s still priority number one.
There’s something a little funny about them simultaneously trying to be progressive as they take such regressive action. Female nipples are offensive but don’t worry we still acknowledge that trans-men are men.
I know that apps have become essential, but why would the app ecosystem from Apple be that important compared to the one from google/android?
