Is Tumblr back?

In 2018, the beloved blogging website committed social suicide when it banned all nudity from the app, alienating itself from the very horny user base that made it so massive in the first place. In just three months, the site's monthly page views dipped from 521 million to 370 million, with many people abandoning the site completely.

Four years later, Tumblr is rolling back on those rules... at least a little bit.

With updated community guidelines, the platform announced yesterday that it would once again allow nudity, but not sexually explicit images.

"We now welcome a broader range of expression, creativity, and art on Tumblr including content depicting the human form," the new community guidelines read. “Nudity and other kinds of adult material are generally welcome. We’re not here to judge your art, we just ask that you add a Community Label to your mature content so that people can choose to filter it out of their Dashboard if they prefer,”

But don't expect the site to be quite as explicit as it once was. Pornography, specifically, still won't be allowed – though it's not clear how they will differentiate that from nudity. According to The Verge, users can’t post links or ads to “adult-oriented affiliate networks,” can't advertise “escort or erotic services,” and can’t post content that “promotes pedophilia,” including “sexually suggestive” content with images of children. These specifics will keep Tumblr in good faith with payment processors and Apple’s App Store for iOS devices.

The changes come with the site's new owner: Tumblr was bought from Verizon in September by Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg.

Twitter is reveling in the win as the bird app was just bought by Elon Musk. Incoming changes are signaling some dramatic changes to Twitter's function and many users are considering leaving it altogether. "He did it. Elon revived Tumblr. Holy sh*t," one user wrote.

Will you be returning to Tumblr?

RELATED | Carl Nassib's New App Bridges the Gap Between Allies & Social Causes