Content sharing | Photo / image sharing | Messaging | Live streaming
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Minimum age according to Tumblr
This is Tumblr’s minimum age. What do you think is the right age for this site?Share your thoughts
Tumblr is a social networking site that lets you share text, photos, quotes, links, audio clips, slideshows and videos. You can customise your page and share other people’s posts. You can also send private messages. Tumblr allows live streaming.
What do I need to know about Tumblr?
We've spoken to parents to find out what they think about Tumblr. We've also asked children and young people what they think. Here's what they said:
What do children and young people say to look out for:
42% of the children and young people who reviewed Tumblr thought that it can be risky. The main reasons they gave were:
Why young people like it:
The main things that young people told us they liked about this site were:
We asked parents whether they were asked to verify their phone number or email address to sign up to this site. We also asked them how easy or difficult it would be for a child to pretend to be older to sign up.
Parents say:
We asked parents how easy it was to find out how to report unsuitable content, to find out if the site is moderated, to block other users and to hide or report an unwanted message or picture.
Parents say:
Young people say:
More information:
Visit Tumblr’s help page to find out more about reporting and blocking.
We asked parents how easy it was to find information about privacy and to change the settings to ensure the account is private.
Parents say:
Young people say:
More information:
Visit the account security page here or Tumblr’s help pages for more information on privacy here.
We asked parents how easy it was to find out whether this site has rules or community standards, to find safety information for children and parents, and to find links to support services.
Parents say:
More information:
Tumblr’s safety information can be found in their help pages.
In June 2017 Tumblr launched 'safe mode' to filter sensitive content - for under 18s accounts safe mode is always on. You can find out more about this here.
This site allows live streaming. Find out more about live streaming here.
Girl, 13
“I like the pics and the people. It can be risky because you can get the nice side of it but you can also get the bad side of it too.”
Girl, 13
“I like to take photographs and post quotes and express my feelings.”
Girl, 13
“You can be creative and talk to people online.”
Mother
“I would tell parents to take time to thoroughly search the site before allowing their child to use the site, go to the help link and read every option.” - Mother of 12yr old boy
Father
“Tumblr is easy to use and caters to a wide range of interests and a wide audience. The relaxed rules on what can be posted means that it is possible to easily stumble across fairly graphic, inappropriate content.” - Father of children aged 4 and 12
Father
“I would show other parents the safeguards and safety features but also how easy it is to find sexually explicit images and videos.” - Father of girls aged 4 and 9
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Tumblr
"Tumblr is so easy to use that it’s hard to explain. We made it really, really simple for people to make a blog and put whatever they want on it. Stories, photos, GIFs, TV shows, links, quips, dumb jokes, smart jokes, Spotify tracks, mp3s, videos, fashion, art, deep stuff."
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O2 Guru Camila says:
“To ensure your blog is secure, you can change your blog's privacy and security settings in the blog main menu. From here you can limit who sees the blog, who can ask questions, who can message you and you can block people.”
Our O2 NSPCC Online Safety Helpline can help you to set up parental controls, adjust privacy settings or get advice on social networks. Call them for free on 0808 800 5002.
You can also book a free in-store appointment with an O2 online safety guru here.
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Tumblr says
This is taken from Tumblr’s own guidelines and is accurate as of March 2017.
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Our panel of parents say
Based on our independent panel of nearly 700 parents, surveyed through YouGov in January 2017.
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Children say
Based on 1,696 responses from children and young people in December 2016 and January 2017.
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Net Aware visitors say
Based on 423 votes from parents who have visited this site – you can vote too!
We asked young people and parents to tell us about the content they came across on Tumblr. Here are the types of inappropriate content that they reported:
Sexual
Violence and hatred
Bullying
Suicide and self-harm
Other
65% of parents reported seeing sexual content on Tumblr. 50% reported adult or illegal content, which could include alcohol, gambling, swearing or drugs.
54% of young people reported seeing sexual content on Tumblr. 46% reported violence and hatred.
Father
“There are pictures of young women and men in their underwear or dressed in lingerie looking directly at the camera in a seductive way.” - Father of girls aged 4 and 9
Father
“Adult language is used frequently. Amateur pornographic images often appear in 'recommended' boxes’. Anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli messages are widespread. There are also images of warfare.” - Father of children aged 11 and 14
Father
“Variety of images of mainstream pornographic acts. Not prolific but frequent enough.” – Father of two
Boy, 15
“There are fake accounts and inappropriate images.”
Boy, 13
“A large amount of posts on Tumblr are pornographic.”
Boy, 16
“There is too much adult content.”
We know it can be awkward but no amount of information beats talking to your children about their experiences online.
Why don’t you show me some of the sites and apps you like?Other relevant resources:
YouTube
YouTube allows you to watch, create and comment on videos. You can create your own YouTube account, playlists and channel with a public profile.
Steam
Steam is an entertainment platform which lets you play games, create your own in-game content, broadcast live videos and chat to other members of the community.
Live.ly
Live.ly is a live video streaming app that allows you to broadcast videos in real time to your friends or other Live.ly users.
Facebook and Messenger
Facebook is a social network which lets you create a page about yourself. Facebook Messenger allows you to instant message in group chats or one to one.
See all
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