Is NSFW Back on Tumblr? Community Labels on Tumblr, Explained

Tumblr is a chaotic hellsite that no one should ever join. That being said, I have been on Tumblr much longer than I care to admit. Let’s just say I was there when NSFW (not safe for work) images could be shared freely without repercussions. In 2018, Tumblr changed its rules to no longer allow such abhorrent things as “female-presenting nipples.”

To be honest, the NSFW ban hurt Tumblr much more than it helped. With the new rule in place, many people left the site. The ban and algorithms seemed to block fanart and other user-created content rather than the graphic spam it supposedly targeted. For the record, I never stopped receiving unsolicited porn bot friend requests during this time, yet my Tony Stark/Steve Rogers fanart reblogs got flagged. The restrictive rules helped nothing. Now Tumblr has rethought its nipple ban and reinstated NSFW images, but with a catch.

NSFW Community Labels

Sadly, we are not going back to the free-for-all days of Tumblr past. But the new Community Labels feature may be a step in the right direction (if Tumblr ever took steps in the right direction). There are four labels currently on this new feature. The default label is “mature” which is an umbrella term for any “content that may not be suitable for all audiences.” They broke up mature into the subcategories of drug and alcohol addiction, violence, and sexual themes.

The labels will help creators and users get NSFW content shared without getting flagged or banned. Creators of posts can mark if their works (images/texts/etc) fit under any of the mature labels. Users must go into their settings on Tumblr to change what they can see. First, make sure you enter your birthday in your information. If you are under 18, you cannot change any of the settings. If you are over 18, you can set each label to hide posts with that label, blur them, or hide them completely. Tumblr thinks this will make users happy, seeing the content they want to and skipping the stuff they don’t like. No one on Tumblr is actually happy, but this may ease our collective suffering.

(feature image: Sony Pictures/Tumblr edit)

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D.R. Medlen

D.R. Medlen (she/her) is a pop culture staff writer at The Mary Sue. After finishing her BA in History, she finally pursued her lifelong dream of being a full-time writer in 2019. She expertly fangirls over Marvel, Star Wars, and historical fantasy novels (the spicier the better). When she's not writing or reading, she lives that hobbit-core life in California with her spouse, offspring, and animal familiars.