Tumblr blocks 'hundreds' of search terms in latest iOS update

As of the new Tumblr 22.5.1 on iOS, the app is rejecting search terms ranging from "bald," to "selfie," in what may be an attempt to satisfy Apple's App Store requirements.

Neither Apple nor Tumblr have stated that the app's changes are to do with iOS App Store requirements. However, Tumblr has said that, "beginning in version 22.5.1, sensitive content is hidden" in the app.

In each case, searching for a seemingly sensitive word or phrase results in an error message. That message can vary, however.

A search for the word "bald" returned an error saying, "that search was weird and we didn't really 'get' it." Searching for "selfie" instead returned "This content has been hidden."

That message added "the content has been hidden because of potentially suggestive or explicit content."

Oddly, other terms more obviously likely to return explicit content are not presently blocked. One such word can be seen in the header of the new Tumblr blog Banned Tags, which first began listing the blocked search words.

The list is presented as an attached Google Doc, so that the list itself isn't blocked by the same search filters.

"Banned Tags" makes the point that the list isn't complete, and also that Tumblr may change any search result at any time.

Note, too, that this is specific to Tumblr 22.5.1, and presumably later, on iOS. Using the Tumblr website on macOS does not feature the same blocks. Although certain words, such as "bald," simply return no results.

Presuming that this is in order to satisfy Apple's requirements, it's probable that Tumblr is intentionally over-doing the words it bans. In 2018, Tumblr was temporarily axed from the App Store for reportedly failing to adequately prevent child pornography being uploaded.

11 Comments

hucom2000 149 comments · 8 Years

About 2 years ago

As of the new Tumblr 22.5.1 on iOS, the app is rejecting search terms ranging from "bald," to "selfie,".

In 2018, Tumblr was temporarily axed from the App Store for reportedly failing to adequately prevent child pornography being uploaded.

I REALLY fail to see the connection between „bald“ and child pornography. Wtf. Is „bald“ a bad word now? I‘m I old for not recognizing its deeply offensive nature?

StrangeDays 12976 comments · 8 Years

The whole thing is unclear -- since Twitter, Reddit, Discord, and other apps can render adult content to the user. This of course is also true of Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and...Safari. So I'm not sure what the logical distinction is between these native apps and the optional adult content they can display.

What I've heard before was it's a matter of where the binaries are stored & served from -- in the case of websites, they come from third-party web servers, not the app-maker's server. I'm not sure where that puts Twitter or Reddit. I think Reddit images & videos are from other servers (ex: Imgur.com) so maybe they're in the clear for the same reason. I'm not sure what Tumblr does with its binaries.

Marvin 15351 comments · 18 Years

hucom2000 said:

As of the new Tumblr 22.5.1 on iOS, the app is rejecting search terms ranging from "bald," to "selfie,".

In 2018, Tumblr was temporarily axed from the App Store for reportedly failing to adequately prevent child pornography being uploaded.

I REALLY fail to see the connection between „bald“ and child pornography. Wtf. Is „bald“ a bad word now? I‘m I old for not recognizing its deeply offensive nature?

There's not always a connection but terms are misused online - bald isn't always used to mean head hair - and these terms are used to tag images. If you for example visit https://www.tumblr.com and search for beard, you'll likely want to clear your browser history. Do the same for "single dad" and there's nsfw content in there.

Apple has guidelines about safety:

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#safety

Their wording allows them to have fairly subjective rulings on anything. It's their store and anything they find distasteful will be removed. Tumblr was a well known pornographic image host and they removed most of it with changes of owners but even though they have tried to clean it up, many of their users clearly mislabel content on purpose.

Although other apps have nsfw content, the more popular ones tend to hide it pretty well by default.