Image via Shutterstock / Composition by Motherboard
On Monday, Kitty Khan—a 19-year-old full-time university student who works as a cam model and erotic content creator to pay for school—was eating breakfast when she saw 100 notifications pop up on her phone from the sex worker support Discord chat she’s a part of.“I felt my heart palpitating as I opened the app,” Khan told me in an email. In the chat, someone had posted Tumblr’s announcement that starting December 17, adult content would be banned from the platform altogether.“My friends were freaking out. I checked Tumblr and so were my mutuals. Over the day we all discussed alternative platforms and ways to keep our following.” Tumblr was a “godsend for sex workers,” she said, with the reblogging system making it easy to spread and share her work. Most of her sales came from Tumblr, she said, with fans sending messages to commission videos or to find out how to see her content elsewhere. Now, that’s gone.The current state of Tumblr is dire: Sex workers, NSFW fandom enthusiasts, and artists feel adrift after Tumblr announced that “out of love and hope for our community,” it would kick hundreds, if not thousands, of users to the digital curb. “Real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples” are forbidden, according to Tumblr’s helpesk, as is any media depicting sex acts. Tumblr has been sending automated algorithms after content to flag it as NSFW, with plenty of hilarious screw-ups in the books already. It’s also calling for people to report any naughty stuff they see on the platform.Khan is one of many adult content creators seeking ways to get their hard work off Tumblr before the full crackdown begins in two weeks. Here are a few options for how to export and re-home your blog, before December 17.Exporting from TumblrBacking up your content is a good idea, no matter what you’re planning to do with it next. Here’s how to do it on Tumblr:
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- Navigate to your account settings
- On the right sidebar, choose the blog you want to export
- Scroll down and click export