(Imagery that just barely hides private parts seems to still be allowed.) The ban prohibited not just hardcore porn, but even the humble female nipple. Meanwhile, Tumblr’s web traffic has–er, tumbled. From the pre-controversy month of October 2018 through April 2019, it’s dropped by about a third–both in the U.S. and internationally, according to analytics firm SimilarWeb–from 558 million to 376 million monthly visits globally. That’s despite Tumblr’s return to the App Store in December. Like a fire that clears out miles of forest, Tumblr’s porn ban has created an ecological niche for new not-safe-for-work (NSFW) friendly sites to take root. Natural selection has weeded out many of them, such as the flopped Cumblr. But at least three other sites appear to be blooming. Though billed as an NSFW Tumblr replacement, newTumbl intends to evolve into much more, says cofounder Dean Abramson. Still, it’s a long way from zero visits in December, and more than some other sites have experienced. For instance, xstumbl, also founded in December 2018, had about 45,000 global visits in April, per SimilarWeb–down from its peak of about 109,000 in January.
