In a reversal of policies that were originally introduced in 2018, Tumblr has now updated its Community Guidelines once again, this time with a slight modification to the section on Sexually Explicit Material.
Previously, any and all nudity and sexual content was barred from being posted on the platform, with the content being censored out if any attempts were made to post the material. However, now the wording goes as follows:
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.
You have the option to add a community label when making a new post, reblogging a post, or editing an existing post. Depending on your content, you can label it as generally mature or choose a specific category such as “Sexual Themes” if your post contains sexually suggestive subject matter.
Tumblr also goes on to talk about monetization and how the content will interact with this:
Blogs which have a focus on mature content may not be eligible for certain Tumblr features, including monetization options. We need to consider the policies of our partners in the payments space, so the rules there are a bit different.
Of course, content is moderated automatically on Tumblr, and there may be posts that now comply with these rules but may still be flagged and censored. Users who have fallen foul of the censorship will have to follow the appeals process as detailed on the support page, which also provides guidance on what types of posts would fall foul of the new rules, primarily, posting links to adult sites still remains prohibited.