Debuting in 2007, Tumblr makes the most of its imagery as a method of communication, encouraging short takes and emotion-inspiring images. It had 75,000 users within two months of its debut. Until late 2018, Tumblr had a completely open policy on content. That led to problems with copyright violations and censorship. If you are visiting a country where Tumblr does not work, you will need the help of a virtual private network (VPN) to safely access your account. My team and I don’t condone illegal behavior and the protection of a VPN doesn’t give you a license to commit illegal acts. Please exercise a basic level of caution when using a VPN — especially when traveling outside of your country of residence.
Tumblr Censorship
From its inception through the point of being bought by Yahoo in 2013, Tumblr had a completely open forum for posting content, regardless of what it was. This has led to four countries – Iran, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, and China, blocking the website for a host of reasons including the promotion of pornography, religious extremism, and LGBT content.
Changes in Tumblr Policy
In November 2018, Apple pulled the Tumblr iOS app after child pornography images were found on the service. Tumblr said the images would have been scanned and deleted from the database in time, but it did not quiet the protests against the company. Over the next six weeks, Tumblr began self-regulation, wiping out blogs and images that showed explicit acts of sex and nudity except those deemed to be done in protests or considered artwork. As expected, the blowback to Tumblr was significant given the long-standing nature of some of the accounts affected.
Censorship in Indonesia
That word’s definition is even broader than in English-speaking countries as it pertains to all forms of nudity, such as artwork. Indonesia has also banned the likes of YouTube and Google for allowing similar content.
How VPNs circumvent Indonesia’s censorship
The VPN connection is something like a secure tunnel between your computer and a remote server located outside Indonesia. The Internet requests you make are encrypted on your end and decrypted by the remote server. From there, it sends them to the Internet with a new IP address. Since that IP address does not originate inside Indonesia, it is not banned. Because Indonesia has legal restrictions on using websites like Tumblr, a kill switch is an essential part of any VPN you use. The kill switch goes to work in case the VPN connection fails. It will automatically sever your connection to the Internet rather than have your actual IP address exposed to any third-party watchdogs.
Best VPN for Indonesia
1ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN is one of the fastest providers on the market today and is a perfect VPN for torrents. Its high speeds are ideal if you’re checking out a lot of graphic-intensive Tumblr pages like those with lots of animated gifs or built-in video. You don’t have to worry about running out of gas with ExpressVPN either; it has unlimited bandwidth and server switches as part of its basic offer, as well as a 30-day risk-free guarantee that is ideal if you’re going to be Indonesia for a month or less. Try Now Risk Free
