SAN FRANCISCO — Image hosting site Imgur has updated its terms of service and warned users to remove any “explicit images” by May 15.
Both “automated detection software” and human moderation will be used to detect the newly forbidden sexual material.
Imgur offered their reasons for the content purge yesterday through a post, explaining that Imgur plans to delete old and inactive content as well as “nudity, pornography and sexually explicit content,” and emphasizing that the purge will focus “most notably” on what the site considers “explicit/pornographic content.”
The post offers the rationale, “Explicit and illegal content have historically posed a risk to Imgur’s community and its business” and claims that the total purge of adult content is necessary to “protect the future of the Imgur community.”
Imgur was launched in 2010 and quickly gained a reputation among Reddit users as a reliable site for hosting images, to which that platform’s users could then share links. Imgur “continues to be the main place for NSFW Reddit image uploads due to Reddit not allowing explicit content to be uploaded directly to Reddit,” an Ars Technica report explained, quoting a third-party developer.
Two years ago, Imgur was acquired by a holding company, MediaLab AI.
Imgur also offered the following details about the new policies:
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“Explicit/Pornographic content was previously permitted to be on Imgur, but not when submitted as a comment or as a gallery submission. This caused frustration with users who received content violations for the content they have seen posted elsewhere off-site. Aligning our Terms of Service more closely with our Community Rules should help clearly define what is and isn’t permitted on Imgur.
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Artistic nudity will continue to be permitted, as it was permitted under the Rules previously - however, since we’re calibrating automated detection in these early stages, some content that may have been permitted under ‘artistic exceptions’ previously may not apply here. We will not be issuing any warnings, account suspensions, or bans in relation to these automated flags - but this may impact what is allowed to be submitted or uploaded. Should there be any issues preventing you from uploading content that is falsely flagged as explicit content, we want to hear from you.
To read the updated Imgur Terms of Service, click here.