Think of the Advertisers!

(( page image - tumblr's "you can't see this site" page ))

A variety of self-censorship, wherein a New Media entity purges itself of "adult" content out of fear of violating the terms of their advertising server and thus losing revenue -- or to make itself attractive to potential advertisers in order to generate or increase revenue.

This frequently happens when an edgy and unrestricted website which is popular and has a large userbase is heavily dependent upon advertising to keep running, or when such a site is bought by a larger, more conservative firm. The result is the complete removal of all the edgy and unrestricted material which drew in the target demographic that the advertiser or the new parent company wanted to exploit.

Also called "making [site] family-friendly", "kindergartenization".

Web Original

 * TV Tropes, of course.
 * Tumblr castrated itself in December 2018, giving its userbase two weeks' warning that all "adult" blogs would be shut down. It also published a list of what constituted "unacceptable" content -- including any and all LGBTQ communities but not Neo-Nazi or White Supremacist groups.  Prior to December 2018, one quarter of all Tumblr's traffic was generated by its NSFW content; another substantial fraction came from its supportive communities for alternative sexualities.  Within two weeks of the announcement, the Staff account posted a desperate message trying to convince those reading it that things were not nearly as dire as they appeared and begging them not to leave the platform.  Within a month, Tumblr's overall traffic had dropped by fifty percent and just kept dropping, to the point that as of May 2019, Verizon -- who had bought Tumblr to monetize it, and had forced its sanitization -- had begun desperately shopping for someone to take the site off their hands.  See our Tumblr page for a bit more detail.