Verizon is currently looking for a buyer to take over Tumblr, a platform it acquired alongside other Yahoo assets in 2017. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the telecoms giant has approached a number of companies for a potential deal but nothing concrete has been achieved so far. Tumblr hosts over 465.5 million blogs. There are also over 172 billion posts. The WSJ added that even though negotiations about a possible sale are ongoing, they may never result in a transaction.
One company that seems to be very interested is Pornhub. The company’s VP Corey Price noted in a statement sent to BuzzFeed that, the adult video sharing platform is keenly following events adding that they are very interested in purchasing Tumblr. Pornhub could restore Tumblr’s “former glory with NSFW content. It is not clear though if Pornhub has made any offers yet.
When Verizon took over all Yahoo assets, there were a number of changes it implemented on Tumblr. Last year, the telecoms company decided to ban all NSFW content on the platform. The move was highly controversial and it attracted a lot of backlash from many users. Despite this, Verizon went ahead with the plan and is using AI to automatically block adult images and videos.
In addition to this, all the existing posts that contained adult content on the platform were all made private. The repercussions of this decision started to become very clear. In addition to the backlash, web traffic towards Tumblr declined massively. A lot of users argued that the only reason why they used the platform in the first place was because of the NSFW content. The fact that it was longer there made no sense for them to visit anymore.
It’s not clear whether this is the reason why Verizon has decided to get rid of Tumblr. There could be other reasons too but it does look like the decision to ban NSFW content may have played a part. There is also no indication that Verizon will be changing this policy. But it is very likely that potential buyers will be looking at reversing the ban in an effort to attract more people towards Tumblr. As a matter of fact, Pornhub, the only company that has openly expressed its interest in buying the platform, has made it clear that its main goal is to return NSFW content into the micro-blogging site.
Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo back in 2013 for $1.1 billion. Yahoo didn’t know what to do with it or how to make it more profitable. The company just allowed users to be as creative as they wanted and this way, Tumblr became a platform where you could see very weird content. In 2017, Verizon finalized the acquisition of Yahoo and all its assets for $4.5 billion. This meant that the telecoms company now owned Tumblr. Many analysts have said that the fact that Verizon is trying to offload Tumblr a few months after buying it’s a clear indication that the deal to acquire Yahoo was a big mistake.
