Not Safe For Work Sasuke might be out of work in general soon

As of May 7th, 2025, microblogging and social media platform Tumblr has started age-gating selected content for users in the United Kingdom and Brazil who have not verified their age.

This follows a number of other platforms, like Reddit and Discord, also changing their policies for UK-based users in the wake of the Online Safety Act 2023. Meanwhile, Brazil’s Digital Statute for Children and Adolescents (also known as ECA Digital) is also seeing similar regulations brought in.

The change wasn’t addressed by an announcement on the general Staff blog, although it did slip in via the Changes blog – an alternative official stream. Because that’s not confusing at all.

Most users would instead become aware of the change when searching for specific tags. If you haven’t verified your age, you’ll be greeted with this message while searching for blacklisted tags or terms:

“Your search results contain content intended for mature audiences, and you cannot access it because of your age or region.”

Underneath the message, you can find a button that redirects you to the Tumblr help center article for “Content Intended for Mature Audiences”. As of yet, the help center page doesn’t actually address how age verification works on the platform, or what kinds of content are impacted. In case that changes, you can find an archived version of the webpage here which preserves the text exactly as-is. 

An alternative page on Tumblr’s help center shines a little more light on its age verification processes – although perhaps not as much as you’d like. This page confirms that verification is done through a partnership with a third-party platform called k-ID.

Who or what is k-ID, Tumblr’s new age verification partner?

According to k-ID’s help center, the company “empowers and protects kids and teens by enabling age-appropriate online experiences they—and their families—can trust.” Back in 2024, k-ID received substantial funding – we’re talking in the range of tens of millions – from backers like Lightspeed Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, per Funderlyst.

You’d be forgiven if you haven’t heard of k-ID before: Tumblr users hardly seem to be their usual demographic. In fact, a quick look at its homepage unveils apps that put Fruit Love Island to shame, alongside, um, Cocomelon.

AI apps aside, you have a few options for verifying your age on Tumblr. You can connect it to your bank account using ConnectID, scan your face for an age estimation (hello, phrenology!), scan some photographic ID, or use your AgeKey, should you have one. Sadly, remembering that time that Tumblr rather offensively banned “female-presenting nipples” does not work as a proof of age. Same goes for if you remember that time that Tumblr dropped from a value of $1 billion to $3 million. 

The Tumblr help center claims that the results of any age verification test will be associated with your account, but only the results. That means that any data uploaded – should you choose to verify your account – won’t actually reach Tumblr itself:

“While the result of the age assurance process will be stored internally and associated with your account, Tumblr will not receive, save or otherwise store your facial scans, bank account details, or anything you provide during the age verification process.”

What kind of stuff is Tumblr age-restricting?

There isn’t a concrete list of what you can and can’t see on Tumblr without, say, scanning your face to see if you’re old enough to look at a guy being tied up. However, it seems safe to assume that posts “Mature content labels” could be hidden.

Users can either opt to label their posts themselves, or have the tags thrust upon them by moderation. Sorry, being thrust upon is probably very not-safe-for-Tumblr these days. Other users can also flag posts if they believe something should have a content tag that doesn’t already have one.

Tumblr is hiding a long list of tags and searches from users in the United Kingdom

Besides individual posts being flagged or labeled, there’s also the aforementioned issue of entire tags and searches being hidden behind verification. There isn’t a concrete list of every tag or search that is impacted, but we took it upon ourselves to see what we could find. A few examples include:

• NSFT (an acronym for “not safe for Tumblr”, used almost synonymously for “NSFW” post-Tumblr porn ban) and variations thereof, e.g. Trans NSFT
• NSFW
• Bondage
• BDSM
• Nudity
• Nude
• Nood (yes, spelled exactly like that – same goes for Noods)
• Porn
• Pron (again, exact spelling)
• Bikini
• Bottom
• Boob, boobs, and just about any other variation of words for that tissue you can think of besides “chest”, including leet speak
• Dick (God forbid your name is Richard)
• Tdick
• Penis
• Vagina
• Clit
• Clitoris
• Nipple (including misspelling it as “nippel”, which I did inadvertently)
• Swimsuit
• Underwear
• Bra
• Lingerie
• Twink
• Twunk
• Ero
• Erotic
• Playboy
• Sex
• Daddy
• Mommy
• Pupplay
• Kink
• Wank
• Sexual
• Horny

This list is non-exhaustive. Please enjoy it anyway. I have, now, seen some things.

There were a number of related tags that weren’t banned. However, we aren’t narcs: we’re not going to serve them all up just to get them blocked shortly after this is published. Perhaps most bizzarely, certain searches aren’t blocked, but they do bring up a pop-up for this post by Tumblr Support from 2014 listing a bunch of helplines and hotlines.

But hasn’t that kind of stuff always been blocked?

No, it hasn’t. Previously, a good number of these tags weren’t blocked at all – in fact, the NSFT tags were quite active and fairly easily accessible.

Meanwhile, others were blocked with a pop-up that attempted at humour with a notification instructing users to “hold their horses”. Alas, the horses have bolted the stables, and they’re heading straight for our personal information.

---

Toni Oisin H.C. is the Head of Audio at QSO Media. Read more of his writing here.

SWARM is a sex worker-led collective and advocacy group. You can find out more about them here, and get involved them here.

Enjoy QSO Media’s content? Support alternative LGBTQIA+ journalism by buying us a Ko-Fi.