How Tumblr went from being the most porn-friendly social media site to banning porn
About a decade ago, I met up with Tumblr founder David Karp at a SoHo coffee shop. I was a writer for Gawker Media’s porn blog, Fleshbot, and Karp was overseeing the relatively new and still growing microblogging platform. We’d met through New York City’s surprisingly small digital media scene. Over coffee, around the corner from Gawker’s Elizabeth Street office, Karp outlined his vision for what Tumblr could do for porn, and what porn could do for Tumblr in return.
At the time, Tumblr was incredibly friendly to adult content. Twitter was too text-heavy to properly showcase erotic art, and Facebook was too prudish (and not nearly anonymous enough). Tumblr offered a happy medium. It provided enough anonymity to allow users to indulge in…
