Post by "The Natural" Bustin Loads on Apr 26, 2023 20:32:12 GMT -5
story per The Verge
Popular image hosting platform Imgur is done with hosting pornography. In a blog post published this week, the company says it has a new terms of service coming into effect on May 15th and that, as a result, it’ll be removing “nudity, pornography, & sexually explicit content” from its platform as well as “old, unused, and inactive content that is not tied to a user account.”
“You will need to download/save any images that you wish to save if they no longer adhere to these Terms,” Imgur wrote in its blog post. “Most notably, this would include explicit/pornographic content.”
The blog post doesn’t offer much detail about how Imgur is defining “old, unused, and inactive content.” Depending on the definition, this could cover a huge portion of non-pornographic imagery uploaded to the service over the years and whose removal could have a massive impact on forums and other online communities that have linked to and embedded it. We’ve reached out to Imgur for clarification on this point, but a spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Imgur has previously had something of a two-tiered approach when it comes to sexually explicit content on its platform. Its community rules, which govern the public content that appears while you browse Imgur directly, have long prohibited the uploading of “nudity or sexually explicit content.” But NSFW content has continued to be allowed under Imgur’s terms of service more broadly, meaning users have been able to upload it on an unlisted basis and link to it directly via its URL.
According to the company’s blog post, this approach “caused frustration with users who received content violations for the content they have seen posted elsewhere off-site.” It hopes that bringing its terms of service into line with its community rules can simplify things. “The Community Rules will now apply to all uploads, both public and hidden,” Imgur wrote in an email to its users. “This means the following content is not permitted anywhere on Imgur: Nudity or sexually explicit content.”
“You will need to download/save any images that you wish to save if they no longer adhere to these Terms,” Imgur wrote in its blog post. “Most notably, this would include explicit/pornographic content.”
The blog post doesn’t offer much detail about how Imgur is defining “old, unused, and inactive content.” Depending on the definition, this could cover a huge portion of non-pornographic imagery uploaded to the service over the years and whose removal could have a massive impact on forums and other online communities that have linked to and embedded it. We’ve reached out to Imgur for clarification on this point, but a spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Imgur has previously had something of a two-tiered approach when it comes to sexually explicit content on its platform. Its community rules, which govern the public content that appears while you browse Imgur directly, have long prohibited the uploading of “nudity or sexually explicit content.” But NSFW content has continued to be allowed under Imgur’s terms of service more broadly, meaning users have been able to upload it on an unlisted basis and link to it directly via its URL.
According to the company’s blog post, this approach “caused frustration with users who received content violations for the content they have seen posted elsewhere off-site.” It hopes that bringing its terms of service into line with its community rules can simplify things. “The Community Rules will now apply to all uploads, both public and hidden,” Imgur wrote in an email to its users. “This means the following content is not permitted anywhere on Imgur: Nudity or sexually explicit content.”
Of course, because things only ever get worse.
If there's any linked images/posts you want to save from Imgur do it before May 15th. If anyone knows a good alternative for hosting please advise. Gonna edit and relink some of my old posts/photoshops.
