Tumblr is now blocked in China
PUBLISHED ONMay 31, 2016 11:59 AMByErik Crouch
File this under "it was only a matter of time." US-based blogging juggernaut Tumblr now joins the ranks of Medium, Twitter, and countless other foreign media platforms to be censored in China.
According to tests, all [name].tumblr.com domains have been blocked in China since early this morning.
Tumblr, owned by Yahoo since 2013, had previously seen specific pages of its domain censored in the mainland, particularly those dealing with risque or political content. But as of today, all of the pages on the domain, whether controversial or utterly innocuous, are inaccessible.
We've reached out to Tumblr for comment, and will update this post if we hear back.
Only a matter of time
Tumblr may have been blocked because it hosted some porn, or perhaps the censorship is linked to today's revelations that a 2013 data breach exposed the information of far more users than had originally been thought.
There's decent reason to think the blockage may be related to the former - porn is illegal in China, and there is a lot of porn on Tumblr. Google the words "Tumblr China" (uh, not while at work) and it's one of the first results. Search "Chinese Tumblr," and porn is also at the top. I Google'd "Safe for work Tumblr" and the top link was porn.
The Chinese authorities have been particularly on edge about pornographic content lately. The attitude comes after a particularly salacious video went viral last week on a number of domestic platforms - and also migrated over to foreign sites like Tumblr and YouTube.
Read the full article here.
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