SAN FRANCISCO — Image hosting site Imgur has updated its terms of service and warned users to remove any “explicit images” by May 15.
Both “automated detection software” and human moderation will be used to detect the newly forbidden sexual material.
Imgur offered their reasons for the content purge yesterday through a post on the site, explaining that they “will be focused on removing old, unused, and inactive content that is not tied to a user account from our platform as well as nudity, pornography and sexually explicit content.”
The site emphasized their total adult content ban by stressing that “most notably” the purge will focus on what the site considers “explicit/pornographic content.”
As tech news site Ars Technica noted today, Imgur is alleging that “explicit and illegal content have historically posed a risk to Imgur’s community and its business.” The company also claims that the total purge of adult content was mandated to “protect the future of the Imgur community.”
Imgur was launched in 2010 and was acquired by a holding company, MediaLab AI, two years ago. It quickly gained a reputation among Reddit users for a reliable site to upload images that could then be linked from that platform. Imgur “continues to be the main place for NSFW Reddit image uploads due to Reddit not allowing explicit content to be uploaded directly to Reddit,” the Ars Technica report explained, quoting a third-party developer.
Reasons Behind Imgur’s New Sex Censorship Policy
The new policies, according to Imgur, will address the following issues:
- “Explicit/Pornographic content was previously permitted to be on Imgur, but not when submitted as a comment or as a gallery submission. This caused frustration with users who received content violations for the content they have seen posted elsewhere off-site. Aligning our Terms of Service more closely with our Community Rules should help clearly define what is and isn’t permitted on Imgur.
- Explicit and illegal content have historically posed a risk to Imgur’s community and its business, disallowing explicit content will allow Imgur to address these risks and protect the future of the Imgur community.
- Artistic nudity will continue to be permitted, as it was permitted under the Rules previously – however, since we’re calibrating automated detection in these early stages, some content that may have been permitted under ‘artistic exceptions’ previously may not apply here. We will not be issuing any warnings, account suspensions, or bans in relation to these automated flags – but this may impact what is allowed to be submitted or uploaded. Should there be any issues preventing you from uploading content that is falsely flagged as explicit content, we want to hear from you.”
To read the updated Imgur Terms of Service, click here.