Link: “TechScape: Tumblr and why ‘the porn-friendly era of the internet is over’”
Matt Mullenweg, Automattic’s co-founder, posted on Tumblr explaining why the old policy – “Go nuts, show nuts. Whatever” – couldn’t work in 2022. It’s about more than porn, really, and functions as a concise explanation of what it’s like being a mid-sized social network in the shadow of the major platforms. […]
Mullenweg breaks the issues out into four areas: credit card processing, App Store policies, verification of consent and age, and service provider limitations.
Of those, three are sort of the same thing. If you work in porn, a lot of other companies don’t want to work with you. “Credit card companies are anti-porn,” he writes. “Whatever crypto-utopia might come in the coming decades, today if you are blocked from banks, credit card processing, and financial services, you’re blocked from the modern economy.
I don’t really agree with the reduction of all NSFW content to “porn”, especially since what thrived on Tumblr in the good old days wasn’t the spambots posting shit from the porn industry, but more like artsy nude photos and amateur stuff. But Big Tech has decided that non-exploitative sexual content is the exact same as hyperexploitative sexual content, so here we are, I guess 🤷🏻♀️
Jessica Smith is a socialist and a feminist who loves animals, books, gaming, and cooking; she’s also interested in linguistics, history, technology and society.