Imgur’s Big Cleanup of Site will remove nudity, pornography and sexually explicit content
The popular image hosting destination Imgur plans to change its Terms of Service on May 15, 2023. The big cleanup of content on the site will remove nudity, pornography and sexually explicit content, as well as “old, unused, and inactive content that is not tied to a user account2.
The company that operates the platform asks users to download any images that they wish to save that do not adhere to the new terms of service.
Imgur users can upload explicit pictures and videos to the site, but not directly. The content was allowed if posted as a comment or if its visibility was not set to public. Public uploads of explicit content was prohibited since the October 2019 decision to discontinue support for Not Safe For Work (NSFW) subsections associated with Reddit.
Back then, Imgur stated that its users were still allowed to upload explicit content to the site, but only with the hidden status setting attached. Explicit content uploaded to the site prior to the announced change in 2019 would remain on the site, but Imgur implemented an adult check for adult content.
Imgur changed its attitude towards explicit content this week. The new terms of service of the company prohibit the uploading of explicit content and could lead to “not found” issues on third-party sites that used embeds to display Imgur content.
They now match the Community Rules, which forbid the uploading of “nudity or sexually explicit content”. One exception to the rule is artistic nudity, which continues to be permitted according to a support page: “Artistic, scientific or educational nude images shared with educational context may be okay here. We don’t try to define art or judge the artistic merit of particular content.”
Automated systems will be implemented that help employees identify explicit content. Imgur hopes that its mix of “automated detection and human review” will minimize the negative impact of these changes to the community.
Imgur explains that it is making the change to “make policies more clear and more consistent across Imgur”. One issue that users of the site ran into regularly was that they received content violations for “the content that they seen posted elsewhere off-site”, another that explicit and illegal content was always a risk for Imgur’s business.
Flagged content will be removed automatically, and this will lead to direct links no longer working and that it won’t be visible anymore in posts. Flagged content that is part of a post with other content that is not flagged, will only have the flagged content removed.
Closing Words
Veteran Internet users may be reminded of Tumblr, a site that disallowed explicit content in 2018 and has seen a drop in traffic ever since. Imgur’s main motivation appears business-related, as advertisers often avoid platforms that allow explicit content.
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