Tumblr decided to ban porn back in December last year. Adult content on the site was banned starting 17th December 2018 and those Tumblr blogs that already had such content would be flagged as explicit.
A lot of people go to Tumblr to check out adult content and it was certain that this ban would have an impact on Tumblr’s traffic. This has been proved by the latest data from Statista.
According to Statista, Tumblr’s traffic has dropped by 28.9% since December. Tumblr’s December traffic stood at 521 million, which dropped to 437 million in January 2019 and dropping further to 370 million by February 2019.
The month on month decline is indeed worrying for Tumblr and comparing it with its historic heights, it gets even graver. In February last year, Tumblr registered 642 million hits and if you compare the year on year decline, this is a 42% decline YoY which is quite bad.
Tumblr’s ban on adult content is quite comprehensive as they described earlier. it includes adult content which includes ‘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.”
Previously, Tumblr was pretty lax with adult content on the site. In November last year, Apple banned the official Tumblr app from the App store over child pornography. They issued the ban on 3rd to be commenced on the 17th and the app was reinstated on the App Store on the 13th.
People on social media promised that they would ditch Tumblr if they banned porn and it seems like they took their word seriously.
