SUNNYVALE, Calif. — According to Yahoo!, #gay apparently equals #porn.
Tumblr, the world’s most popular a microblogging platform is now censoring LGBT-related tags following its recent takeover by Yahoo!.
As of last week, Tumblr is blocking all of its users (and those who follow the site’s tags) from viewing anything tagged as “#gay”, “#lesbian,” “#bisexual,” and 26 other tags that have been deemed “not safe for work” (NSFW) when searching in “safe mode.”
“The reason you see innocent tags like #gay being blocked on certain platforms is that they are still frequently returning adult content which our entire app was close to being banned for,” Tumblr explained. “The solution is more intelligent filtering which our team is working diligently on.”
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In other words, Yahoo! believes that the majority of #gay content is pornographic, and must therefore be blocked.
Tumblr added that users can browse #lgbtq — which is now moderated by community editors — but only in mobile apps.
The tag blocking coincides with a new, site-wide crackdown on adult content. Tumblr said Friday that users with “Adult” and “NSFW” blogs would be de-indexed from both internal and external search – making an estimated 12.5 million blogs invisible to search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo!.
Within 24 hours, following widespread internet backlash, Tumblr quietly returned those blogs back to internal and external search, and folded its “Adult” blogs into the wider “NSFW” category.
Tumblr said adult content would simply be flagged as NSFW, so people in safe mode can avoid it. Those blogs will still be indexed by third-party search engines, Tumblr said.
In May, after purchasing Tumblr for $ 1.1 billion, Yahoo! Chief Executive Marissa Mayer promised to “let Tumblr be Tumblr.”
