With whom will Tumblr find its forever home?

Like many companies in 2019, Verizon has been going through some serious changes. The company has been trying to re-brand itself in recent months, but what is perhaps more interesting is the fate of Tumblr. Tumblr was owned by Yahoo until very recently, but the company’s ownership of Tumblr failed to bear fruit. It would appear that the same can now be said of Verizon’s ownership of Tumblr, which the former is currently trying to end.

Verizon is currently trying to sell Tumblr, which they acquired alongside several other assets from Yahoo in 2017. Tumblr is currently a hot potato, as it will likely be sold regardless of the fact that neither Yahoo nor Verizon have found it useful enough to justify holding onto. Tumblr is, however, a massive platform that is the home to over 400 million blogs and over 170 billion posts, according to The Verge.

The reasons for the current situation are several, but it is clear that some controversial decisions have been made by Verizon’s soon-to-be former asset. Tumblr banned pornography from their platform last year, and began using AI to automatically detect and block adult content. This decision was controversial as it made previously public posts suddenly private and inaccessible. Many of these blocked posts didn’t actually contain any adult content, but they were blocked due to AI failures anyway. The result of this has ended up being harsh criticism from users and a serious drop in traffic to Tumblr.

Tumblr had been acquired by Yahoo in 2013, but Yahoo too didn’t really take serious advantage of the up-and-coming asset they had purchased. Layoffs at Verizon have affected the company’s entertainment divisions and some of the sites they own, which may have contributed to the current situation. For now, Tumblr will be passed on again, and maybe the platform will reach its full potential sometime in the future.