250,000 People (Updating) Protest Against Tumblr’s Porn Ban Via Petition

On Monday, Tumblr made an announcement about widely banning adult content in two weeks. It seems like people cannot take it even a little. On Tuesday morning, 250,000 people (and the number is still rising) had gone to the site Change.org, signing a petition against this move.

S.S., an adult artist from NSFW, started the petition. As reported by Change.org, the petition against the ban is currently the third most popular in the US this week. Within just 24 hours, over 215,000 signatures were put on it.

Recalling Tumblr’s statement on Monday, it said this is a step towards “a better, more positive Tumblr.” Apparently, this is opposite to the fact that the platform is mostly filled with adult content.

The outrage at the ban has spread to Twitter, many users Tweeted, arguing that Tumblr earns the most from porn. The same argument appears in the petition on Change.org, saying that it's mostly the reason for a users to come to this platform, with a call for allowing porn.

In the petition, S.S. added that the artist contributes a large part of Tumblr’s viewership. If Tumblr bans on adult contents, S.S will lose a considerable number of viewers. The ban will negatively affect both adult artist like S.S, who make a living from the platform, and those who really want the contents.

In its yesterday blog post, Tumblr said that there’re just a few exceptions, including photos related to breastfeeding. The firm clarified that blogs with adult-related contents will not be taken down, but they will need permission for their posts.

The following are some other statements that signers wrote to support S.S’s petition on Change.org.

Signer Jessica Harper said that she devotes her signature to the artists. In her opinion, Tumblr should remain the place for artists to spread their creativity to their fans as well as encourage them to fearlessly express themselves.  She also wrote that the platform is meant to accept and share different fandoms’ creations, regardless of the content.

Another signer, Greyson Harris, wrote that it’s wrong for Tumblr to targeting half of its users just because the company fails to control porn contents on its platform.