JAKARTA — Tumblr is back online in Indonesia after government official banned the blogging site for nine months due to porn on the platform.
Tumblr, a division of Verizon Communications Inc.’s Oath media business, turned its back to adult content on Dec. 17 worldwide, barring all explicit posts.
Adult entertainers, who rely on all forms of social media to market themselves, have been mourning the decision all month long to ban erotic content and slice away its massive archives.
Indonesia, however, has taken a zero-tolerance approach against adult content and cut Tumblr in March; video-sharing site Vimeo and content aggregator Reddit also were banned.
Tumblr’s worldwide ban on adult content — which includes showing sex acts, exposed genitals and “female-presenting” nipples — is one of numerous changes at Verizon’s Oath unit.
Also this month, Verizon wrote off most of Oath’s equity — $4.6 billion.
Oath’s brands not only include Tumblr, but numerous other digital brands such as AOL, HuffPost, TechCrunch and Yahoo, among numerous others.
According to an SEC filing, Oath said it has “experienced increased competitive and market pressures” throughout the year resulting in lower-than-expected revenue and earnings. “These pressures are expected to continue and have resulted in a loss of market positioning to our competitors in the digital advertising business.”
Expectations were high when Verizon bought Yahoo for $4.5 billion in 2017 and AOL for $4.4 billion in 2015 to merge under a broader media company, Oath. Tumblr, founded in 2007, was acquired by Yahoo in May 2013 for $1.1 billion
Verizon’s goal was to challenge content rivals Facebook, Google and Amazon for ad dollars. But it has been unsuccessful.
Verizon plans to now focus more on its wireless operations as the company has written down the goodwill portion of its investment in Oath down to $200 million.
Verizon said Oath still has about $5 billion in remaining assets.
