In a couple of weeks, Imgur, the image-based social platform known for easy hosting of images for sites like Reddit, will begin the process of purging adult content and anonymous posts (both of which are very much functions/content that the platform was built on.) They claim they will still allow "artistic" nudity, but we all know that's fairly meaningless term, subject to arbitrary enforcement, especially when the enforcement starts with AI moderation.
Here's the TOS change announcement.
An Ars Technica write-up on the change points out that Imgur had been purchased by MediaLab, a holding company that's in the business of gobbling up social platforms, and it discusses awful attempts in the past made by social platforms like Tumblr and Onlyfans.
A WIRED article is especially interesting. It mentions FOSTA-SESTA (the recent anti-porn laws) as possible causes for this decision, although I have a feeling that the buyout has as much to do with it as anything -- holding companies are bank-owned businesses, and banks are conservative institutions as a default. Mostly it goes into the impact this is going to have on sex workers and wide accessibility to diversity in erotic content, which absolutely should be the front end of the discussion of this shit.
Imgur has always been a primary image link server for Reddit -- I believe it was actually specifically created because posting images directly to Reddit wasn't a thing at the time, and posting adult content directly to Reddit is still a nightmare to try to do. Where self-employed adult content creators and sex workers are concerned, Reddit is a massive platform. Losing the service of a primary image host is awful. This decision by Imgur is certainly going to ruin its viability as a platform -- who the fuck uses Imgur for anything other than posting memes and porn to Reddit? -- but most importantly, this is going to wipe out untold amounts of content from the internet, and deeply negatively impact independent content creators and sex workers who utilize Reddit for their business.
This super sucks, y'all.
Here's the TOS change announcement.
An Ars Technica write-up on the change points out that Imgur had been purchased by MediaLab, a holding company that's in the business of gobbling up social platforms, and it discusses awful attempts in the past made by social platforms like Tumblr and Onlyfans.
A WIRED article is especially interesting. It mentions FOSTA-SESTA (the recent anti-porn laws) as possible causes for this decision, although I have a feeling that the buyout has as much to do with it as anything -- holding companies are bank-owned businesses, and banks are conservative institutions as a default. Mostly it goes into the impact this is going to have on sex workers and wide accessibility to diversity in erotic content, which absolutely should be the front end of the discussion of this shit.
Imgur has always been a primary image link server for Reddit -- I believe it was actually specifically created because posting images directly to Reddit wasn't a thing at the time, and posting adult content directly to Reddit is still a nightmare to try to do. Where self-employed adult content creators and sex workers are concerned, Reddit is a massive platform. Losing the service of a primary image host is awful. This decision by Imgur is certainly going to ruin its viability as a platform -- who the fuck uses Imgur for anything other than posting memes and porn to Reddit? -- but most importantly, this is going to wipe out untold amounts of content from the internet, and deeply negatively impact independent content creators and sex workers who utilize Reddit for their business.
This super sucks, y'all.
