Tumblr Addresses, Fixes Safe Mode Feature That Hid Innocent LGBTQ Content

Tumblr recently launched a Safe Mode feature for its app and desktop site, however the update received backlash after it hid innocent LGBTQ+ content. The blogging platform announced Friday it fixed the problem.

When Safe Mode is enabled, sensitive posts are hidden behind a “This post may contain sensitive media” message, with an option to view it anyway. Those who are under 18 are kept from seeing the sensitive content, like nudity. The feature can be enable through settings by turning on Safe Mode and choosing “Hide all sensitive content,” “Just hide sensitive search results,” or “Don’t hide anything.”

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However, the feature was accidentally blocking LGBTQ+ content, leading users to go on social media and express their outrage.

A petition on Change.org was launched calling on Tumblr to remove its Safe Mode feature. The petition had over 8,800 supporters on Saturday, close to its 10,000 signature goal.

“Many people can't see content their friends are reblogging, other's are being treated to a dashboard full of blocked posts, and a few can't do anything due to everything being blocked,” the petition said. “Even the LGBT tags are being branded as NSFW, which is a horribly homophobic thing for Tumblr to do during Pride Month.”

On Friday, Tumblr apologized for censoring LGBTQ+ content. The platform said it was accidental and that the problem had been fixed.

“We’ve heard from a bunch of you that Safe Mode was filtering posts from the LGBTQ+ community even though they were completely innocuous and totally safe-for-work,” said Tumblr in a post. “Please know that was never our intention, and we appreciate you letting us know so quickly—and forcefully! We’re deeply sorry. Tumblr will always be a place where everyone is welcome and protected.”

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Tumbrl said the biggest issues was that some users had marked themselves as Adult/NSFW, which are now considered explicit, and led their innocent posts to be unintentionally labeled as sensitive.

Tumblr is now classifying sensitive content by looking at each post, instead of marking all posts consider of what they considered to be Explicit blogs. Innocent posts were also marked sensitive when they were reblogged by explicit Tumblrs, which has been changed now, the platform said.

Tumblr said it’s now working on fixing a problem with photosets. The computer algorithm was at first classifying photo posts as safe or sensitive, but isn’t at its best with posts containing multiple images. Tumblr was labeling the photosets as sensitive and remained so until a user requested a human review.

“We plan to have photosets analyzed as a whole group, rather than as individual images. That should reduce the number of mistakes the machine makes,” Tumblr said.