Failures of nsfw-bot
Dec. 11th, 2018 09:51 am I'm writing up a list of things that nsfw-bot, Tumblr's censorship AI, has incorrectly flagged as pornography. Because of the sheer lunacy of expecting an AI to consistently identify photorealistic nudity correctly, let alone also expecting it to tell male from female nipples or porn from classical artwork of nudes, this list is not and cannot ever be exhaustive. However, feel free to show me anything particularly egregious that I may have left out.
- An old woodcut of the Grim Reaper
- A photo of a protester holding a sign that says "FUCK OFF NAZIS"
Things that Tumblr and its content algorithm have not done anything about whatsoever:
- Actual Nazis. Seriously, why can't they ban the Nazis??
- Any post with the tag #sfw. Particularly egregious because ACTUAL PORN BOTS are using these.
THINGS THAT nsfw-bot HAS MISIDENTIFIED AS PORNOGRAPHY:
- A bare male chest (but not if you hue-shift it or paste a photo of an owl in the corner of the image)
- All posts with the hashtag #chronicpain (apparently because it's sometimes abbreviated as CP)
- All posts with the hashtag #chronicpain (apparently because it's sometimes abbreviated as CP)
- G-rated images of LGBT+ people (example)
- Various permutations of a woman presenting images of male nipples or baby-bottle nipples (a protest against the phrase "female-presenting nipples" in the new rules)
- Classic nude artwork, including Michelangelo's David and the painting Truth Coming Out of Her Well To Shame Mankind.
- Clean selfies and a photo of a vase (even more egregious considering that this is from Erica Moen, whose comic "Oh Joy Sex Toy" is definitely 10000% NSFW, and yet THESE G-rated images were the only ones flagged)
- A photo of a woman's shoulders. The woman is clearly wearing either a bra or a spaghetti-strap top.
- Screenshots of an ad for Werther's Originals candies with a creme filling
- Personal posts about being gay and/or how seeing LGBT representation in media affected them emotionally
- Any post that uses the words "lesbian," "trans," or "gay" (way to go, Yahoo, your AI is basically bigoted completely by accident)
- A picture of a vomiting unicorn
- This parody meme
- Pictures of Obama playing with a baby (I think from the British royal family?) in the Oval Office (totally G-rated, wholesome images)
- A package containing a whole, raw chicken
- Patents for a boot-scrubber
- A field full of Pomeranians
- Heart-shaped pendants
- Drawings of dragons
- A post containing several portrait-style photos of Black women
- A pencil drawing of a child crying
- G-rated fanart of popular podcast The Adventure Zone
- Screenshots of Steven Universe
- This totally-clean video game fanart
- Pictures of robots and turtles
- Mister Rogers
- Artwork of a cave, with no humans or other living things visible in it
- Fractals
- Silly sketches of lions
- A still-life sketch of common kitchen items
- A very sketchy image-in-progress of what appears to be Captain America and the Falcon, hugging. HUGGING!
- An article about a pornbot on a British site that misidentified photos of desert sand as pornography (so meta)
- Links to an article on SMH about how Tumblr's new rules will cause the erasure of lots of worksafe LGBT+ content, as well as important sex-ed posts
- A picture of a cat (appears to be a recolored Glameow from Pokemon)
- An image that literally is just the words "A PICTURE OF A CHICKEN" in black text on a white background (You can't make this up, folks)
- Seriously, So. Many. Pictures. Of. Pets.
- A photo of some chocolates with ghosts on them
- Photos of wildflowers (I guess plant genitals count too?)
- Links to a CNN article about Joe Biden
- A woman in steampunk attire, who is literally covered everywhere from the neck down
- Drawings of Neopets characters
- Garfield the cat
- That one photo of a baby with a Japanese horse mask on its head
- This image, which appears to show Minecraft characters bending their elbows (which they can't actually do in-game)
- Fanart of Mario (again, totally G-rated fanart, not the erotic stuff)
- A design for an "ugly holiday sweater" featuring Totoro
- Calligraphy (of totally clean words)
- A cute comic strip about dinosaurs
- A photo of cats, with text in Russian (the Russians love their cat memes as much as everybody else)
- Disney's Cinderella
- A man with cat ears, in military uniform, holding a gun
- A photo of a hand
- Various work-safe photos of Tom Hiddleston
- A photo of some action figures, posed so that Batman is sitting at a table and the Green Power Ranger is handing him a plate of frankfurters
- A painting of a bowl of fruit with teeth, apparently inspired by Ursula Vernon
- A photo of a woman in a sports bra, smoking a cigarette
- A photo of the same woman eating a soft-serve ice cream cone
- These ordinary household objects
- This post about bacon- Various permutations of a woman presenting images of male nipples or baby-bottle nipples (a protest against the phrase "female-presenting nipples" in the new rules)
- Classic nude artwork, including Michelangelo's David and the painting Truth Coming Out of Her Well To Shame Mankind.
- Clean selfies and a photo of a vase (even more egregious considering that this is from Erica Moen, whose comic "Oh Joy Sex Toy" is definitely 10000% NSFW, and yet THESE G-rated images were the only ones flagged)
- A photo of a woman's shoulders. The woman is clearly wearing either a bra or a spaghetti-strap top.
- Screenshots of an ad for Werther's Originals candies with a creme filling
- Personal posts about being gay and/or how seeing LGBT representation in media affected them emotionally
- Any post that uses the words "lesbian," "trans," or "gay" (way to go, Yahoo, your AI is basically bigoted completely by accident)
- A picture of a vomiting unicorn
- This parody meme
- Pictures of Obama playing with a baby (I think from the British royal family?) in the Oval Office (totally G-rated, wholesome images)
- A package containing a whole, raw chicken
- Patents for a boot-scrubber
- A field full of Pomeranians
- Heart-shaped pendants
- Drawings of dragons
- A post containing several portrait-style photos of Black women
- A pencil drawing of a child crying
- G-rated fanart of popular podcast The Adventure Zone
- Screenshots of Steven Universe
- This totally-clean video game fanart
- Pictures of robots and turtles
- Mister Rogers
- Artwork of a cave, with no humans or other living things visible in it
- Fractals
- Silly sketches of lions
- A still-life sketch of common kitchen items
- A very sketchy image-in-progress of what appears to be Captain America and the Falcon, hugging. HUGGING!
- An article about a pornbot on a British site that misidentified photos of desert sand as pornography (so meta)
- Links to an article on SMH about how Tumblr's new rules will cause the erasure of lots of worksafe LGBT+ content, as well as important sex-ed posts
- A picture of a cat (appears to be a recolored Glameow from Pokemon)
- An image that literally is just the words "A PICTURE OF A CHICKEN" in black text on a white background (You can't make this up, folks)
- Seriously, So. Many. Pictures. Of. Pets.
- A photo of some chocolates with ghosts on them
- Photos of wildflowers (I guess plant genitals count too?)
- Links to a CNN article about Joe Biden
- A woman in steampunk attire, who is literally covered everywhere from the neck down
- Drawings of Neopets characters
- Garfield the cat
- That one photo of a baby with a Japanese horse mask on its head
- This image, which appears to show Minecraft characters bending their elbows (which they can't actually do in-game)
- Fanart of Mario (again, totally G-rated fanart, not the erotic stuff)
- A design for an "ugly holiday sweater" featuring Totoro
- Calligraphy (of totally clean words)
- A cute comic strip about dinosaurs
- A photo of cats, with text in Russian (the Russians love their cat memes as much as everybody else)
- Disney's Cinderella
- A man with cat ears, in military uniform, holding a gun
- A photo of a hand
- Various work-safe photos of Tom Hiddleston
- A photo of some action figures, posed so that Batman is sitting at a table and the Green Power Ranger is handing him a plate of frankfurters
- A painting of a bowl of fruit with teeth, apparently inspired by Ursula Vernon
- A photo of a woman in a sports bra, smoking a cigarette
- A photo of the same woman eating a soft-serve ice cream cone
- These ordinary household objects
- An old woodcut of the Grim Reaper
- A photo of a protester holding a sign that says "FUCK OFF NAZIS"
Things that Tumblr and its content algorithm have not done anything about whatsoever:
- Actual Nazis. Seriously, why can't they ban the Nazis??
- Any post with the tag #sfw. Particularly egregious because ACTUAL PORN BOTS are using these.