Tumblr Goes Overboard Censoring Tags on iOS To Comply With Apple's Guidelines (theverge.com) 34
An update to Tumblr's iOS app censors a long list of tags to comply with Apple's strict safety guidelines. From a report: The platform explains that it's changing iOS users' ability to access sensitive content, affecting their experience when it comes to searching for content, scrolling through the "Stuff for You" and "Following" sections of the dashboard, and could even prevent access to blogs that are flagged. Tumblr says it has to "extend the definition of what sensitive content is" to "remain available within Apple's App Store," and it seems that Tumblr stretched it pretty far. Tags are what make posts searchable on Tumblr; posts with censored tags won't appear on a users' dashboard, nor will they show up on the platform's search page. A Twitter thread brought attention to some of the absurd tags that ended up getting filtered out on iOS, including the tag "submission." The interesting part, though, is that Tumblr applies that tag automatically when a post is submitted and then published to a blog on the platform. Users on iOS who receive a submission to their blog won't even be able to view it since the "submission" tag is already added, as shown in a post by one Tumblr user.
This (Score:2)
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In this case, Tumblr could rub it in even more by saying "these limitations apply to iOS, because we are concerned our app may be banned otherwise. One every other platform, we don't filter".
I'd love to see the reactions by Apple users.
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Re:This (Score:5, Insightful)
I do no permit someone else to control what I may and may not access.
If that was actually true, you wouldn't have even entered their garden.
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You get what you pay for... (Score:1)
It's a dream come true. A completely filtered and censored experience on the web, it's what apple users have been dreaming of.
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Protection from what we do not want like malware is what users want. Protection from content they specifically search for is NOT what they want.
That's not what a walled garden is. It provides protection from what somebody else wants. It isn't your garden, you're not burdened with the responsibility to decide what to want.
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The key is that walled gardens are sold on a false promise. The creators promise the walls will protect you from the bad, bad world. In practice, the walls may do that, but their main purpose is to keep you in.
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You're still confused.
You simply failed to understand what is bad in the world.
If you let somebody else choose, then you should respect their choice.
If you want to choose for yourself, you should respect your own right to choose.
"If you want porn.. (Score:2)
..use Android."
Wasn't that something the late Mr. Jobs said? TBH, if your business can afford to straight up tell your customers to fuck off and go to your competition (because you know you've got them with vendor-lock-in, and they won't actually leave), I'd say that meets the criteria of abusing your position in the marketplace.
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Yeah, I know it's not about porn in this case. However, this path began when tumblr nix'd porn ostensibly to comply with Apple's app guidelines, and now the ol' slope is getting slippery.
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"Freedom from porn" (Score:3)
"If you want porn...use Android."
Wasn't that something the late Mr. Jobs said?
It was "freedom from porn", which roughly translates to "freedom from choice", which is really what he was saying.
I'm happy to say (Score:2)
i fully support this (Score:1)
tumblr still exists? (Score:2)
Once they dropped the "anything goes" nature of the platform it ceased being any concern at all for me and the vast majority of people I ever knew of that used it. Adding more censorship can only speed along its demise. Saying that Apple will get the blow-back from this assumes a far higher threshold of critical thinking than most people are capable of. They'll just say, "well, tumblr sucks now" and bye, bye.
Doh (Score:5, Insightful)
To fix:
1. Consider a different product.
2. Demand Congress pass a law that banks and CC companies and other financial transaction businesses not withhold payments for legal products because of social pressures.
To take a statement from certain politicians, they have the honor of monopolizing that market, and so should not be enforcers of arbitrary beliefs.
This way they won't feel the threat of being cut off from payment systems because of loudmouth neo-fundamentalist busybodies.
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2. Demand Congress pass a law that banks and CC companies and other financial transaction businesses not withhold payments for legal products because of social pressures.
That’s not really the issue. IIRC, legal pot dispensaries are blacklisted by most credit card processors, and they’ve found workarounds (such as accepting cryptocurrency and/or having an ATM nearby).
Most of the companies which bowed to social pressure did so because their investors and/or sponsors demanded it. Good luck with trying to pass a law telling people how they can invest/spend their money.
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Tumblr never had problems with payment systems. This is Apple's walled garden rules.
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Actually, scrub that. They did have issues when they banned porn. But that's not the issue here, these are just Apple's rules relating to the app.
Hope Tumblr learns from it (Score:4, Interesting)
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No one will lean from it until we get laws passed that ensure people with power to compel others (aka: the banking industry, and the big tech industry) are prevented from doing so.
Repeat after me: Fuck Apple! (Score:2)
Not censorship. (Score:1)
People still use Tumblr? (Score:2)
People still use Tumblr?
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