This May Shock You, But Tumblr’s Traffic Has Plummeted Since Banning Porno

Everyone knew when Tumblr announced that it would be banning porn from December that it would result in a marked decline in traffic to the beleaguered platform. After all, there had already been a general shift away from Tumblr, and those left were mostly there to share art and hardcore porno, and occasionally some weird combination of the two.

But now there’s somewhat harder evidence that things are going south – and that it really looks like porn ban is at least somewhat to blame.

According to the public profile for Tumblr provided by web analytics firm SimilarWeb, traffic to the platform plummeted sharply following the December ban. Visits dropped from a September high of 568 million, down to a February low of 369 million.

Source: SimilarWeb

There’s a similar showing on Statista, which seems to show a more dramatic drop thanks to the scale they’re using on their graph.

Source: Statista

Following the ban, Tumblr sent out takedown notices to users who hosted content deemed pornographic on their blogs. Many complained that whatever automated system was being used to detect porn was far too sensitive, and completely legitimate content was being tagged as explicit. Tumblr acknowledged these problems in a blog post, saying that it had not been “an easy transition.”

But look, this was absolutely to be expected. When a not-insignificant part of your userbase are proudly horny freaks, and you prevent them from getting their jollies on your platform, they’re obviously going to move on and find somewhere else to post and enjoy their porn.

Tumblr’s longterm bet, as outlined by CEO Jeff D’Onofrio, is that they’ll find stable footing as a more ‘accessible’ website, where your average Joe isn’t going to stumble across bizarre hentai every time they log on. Guess we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we!


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