Imgur will restrict obscene photographs on May 15. In addition, the corporation modified its terms of service to remove “nudity, pornography, & sexually explicit content” from the site later this month.
Disallowing sexual content will “protect the future of the Imgur community,” according to Medialab-owned Imgur.
The image hosting site will still allow creative nudity, but it will switch to a mix of automatic and human moderation, which may cause uploading troubles.
“Artistic nudity will continue to be permitted under the Rules, but since we’re calibrating automated detection in these early stages, some content that may have been permitted under “artistic exceptions” may not apply here. “We will not issue any warnings, account suspensions, or bans about these automated flags – but this may impact what is allowed to be submitted or uploaded,” Imgur noted in its blog post.
According to Apollo developer Christian Selig, this change may affect multiple NSFW subreddits that use Imgur for explicit image hosting. Since Reddit didn’t initially allow picture uploads, many users are familiar with Imgur. For example, Imgur was used to upload photographs for Reddit sharing.
Imgur stopped showing NSFW Reddit photos and search queries in 2018. The corporation accepted obscene photographs as “hidden” at the time.
To comply with Apple’s App Store standards, Tumblr notoriously prohibited porn that year. Last year, the business added “Community Labels” to help consumers filter sensitive content.
Imgur is also eliminating unlinked photographs and obscene images. According to a Twitter user, Imgur has been used to publish photographs without accounts and provide links to various sites for years. Removing those photos may cause many dead links online.
