Hosting site Imgur will remove explicit and anonymous content next month

Imgur, an image-hosting site that has been one of the web's go-to spots for linking hi-res images since 2010, has told users that it intends to remove "explicit images" and "old, unused, and inactive content" as of May 15.

The new Terms of Service are somewhat expanded upon in a post in the Safety & Standards section of Imgur's help section.

"We 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, & sexually explicit content," the page reads. "Most notably, this would include explicit/pornographic content." Imgur notes that it will "employ automated detection software" alongside human moderators to identify explicit content.

Under a "Why are we doing this?" heading, Imgur claims that it is primarily aligning its "Community Rules," which applied to "community interactions on the site" like comments and public galleries, with its all-content Terms of Service. But Imgur also notes that "explicit and illegal content have historically posed a risk to Imgur's community and its business" and that removing it will help "protect the future of the Imgur community."

Artistic nudity will be permitted, the site says, though it is "calibrating automated detection in these early stages," so content may be flagged. The post ends with a GIF of a fluffy puppy, offered "as a token of our thanks."

Imgur, which was acquired by multi-brand holding company MediaLab AI, Inc. in 2021, initially grew out of posters' inability to upload images to many sites, including Reddit (which offered native image uploading in 2016). As the developer of popular third-party Reddit client Apollo noted, the site continues to be "the main place for NSFW Reddit image uploads... due to Reddit not allowing explicit content to be uploaded directly to Reddit."

Removing "not safe for work" (NSFW) content on a site with a reputation for storing it and hoping an algorithm can do the work is a strangely well-worn path. The most famous company to do something similar was Tumblr, the blogging site that tried to ban all adult content in late 2018, having been purchased by a Verizon subsidiary that was looking to commercialize its property and avoid issues with app store approval. Tumblr had become a well-known venue for adult content, specifically for material not easily accessible or broadly represented in mainstream, mostly heteronormative pornography.

As noted two days later in an Ars headline, "Tumblr's porn ban is going about as badly as expected." The algorithm consistently flagged material that was non-sexual but may have involved LGBTQIA+ content, tended to overcorrect for female images versus male, and made confusing decisions about dragons, crochet handles, and Alex Ovechkin sleeping with the Stanley Cup. In 2022, under the ownership of WordPress parent Automattic, Tumblr announced it would no longer restrict nudity or other sexual themes, relying on the community to label and filter such content.

Content-subscription site OnlyFans, in an even more brazenly dissociative move, sought to ban vaguely defined "sexually explicit" material in 2021—but not nudity—to "comply with the requests of our banking partners and payout providers." OnlyFans was also allegedly seeking to attract investors at a valuation of $1 billion. The company went back on that plan less than a week later.

Whatever the reason for Imgur's pivot, there is more at stake in the company's announcement than a NSFW ban. The phrasing of "old, unused, and inactive content that is not tied to a user account" as something to be removed endangers a good deal of content that doesn't have a home elsewhere.

As Twitter user atomicthumbs notes, step-by-step repair manuals are sometimes found on Imgur; I've used a few that aren't listed elsewhere to get into devices. It also hosts instructions for modifications or tweaks that no site would want to officially endorse. It's nobody's obligation to host images indefinitely for free, but Imgur has been around long enough that such a culling will likely result in untold amounts of link rot—web pages missing vital pieces of context.

Ars has reached out to Imgur to clarify which images will be removed and will update this post if we hear back.