Filters Suck Out Loud: Tumblr's Porn Filters Flag Tumblr's Examples Of Allowed Content

As you'll recall, Tumblr recently decided to go the Puritan route with its platform, announcing that it would begin filtering "porn" from its platform. As we pointed out, this was bound to go hilariously wrong, with plenty of innocent content getting swept up in the auto-filters. There were already examples of this, ranging from pictures of cartoons to what looks to be accidental photos people took on their couches. You may have thought at that time that no better example could be found for how dumb auto-filters like this tend to behave.

But Tumblr itself accidentally just provided such an example. Seeking to clarify what is and is not allowed, Tumblr posted a GIF of the kinds of images that would be allowed on the site: artwork, educational material, etc. It all went swimmingly... until others tried to post the exact same GIF to see what would happen.

When Gizmodo posted the gif to Tumblr ourselves, it was immediately flagged as a potential violation and hidden by the platform's filter. When the images shown in the gif were uploaded individually, two of the four examples-which appeared to show a breast ultrasound and a pro-choice protest, respectively-were similarly flagged and hidden.

And that really should tell you everything you need to know about how effective these types of filters are at completely pooping the bed on their most basic function. That Tumblr did this to itself makes it all the more sweet, particularly when it did so as part of a message that would supposedly clarify things for users of its service.

And, yet, it's not as though the filters will go away. Platforms are incentivized to screw up on the side of over-blocking and collateral damage by misguided legislation that seeks to solve a non-problem but instead only makes it worse. In other words: bang up job all around, guys.