Interview with Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg on how the Tumblr acquisition came about, what's next for Tumblr, adult content in apps, and more
Blogging is back, hopefully — It's been a long and winding road for Tumblr, the blogging site that launched a thousand writing careers. Tweets: @reckless , @reckless , and @reckless See also Mediagazer Tweets: Nilay Patel / @reckless : One thing that jumped out in this interview: the real sense that Tumblr didn't lose nearly as many users due to the porn ban as people think. https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/... Nilay Patel / @reckless : The other thing that jumped out: the idea that Tumblr can bring back some old-school blogging vibes and really make a run at big social networks like Facebook and Twitter https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/... Nilay Patel / @reckless : Emergency ~exclusive~ Vergecast! I talked to @photomatt about his plans for Tumblr, with a big assist from @loudmouthjulia. It sounds like the plan is to reinvigorate blogging, which, frankly, would be awesome. https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer Expand More For Next Unexpand More For Next
Context & Ripple Effects
Tumblr arrived at this interview battered: founder David Karp resigned in late 2017 after months of reflection on his personal ambitions, and a year later the company announced a permanent ban on adult content effective December 17. Mullenweg's pitch to The Verge is that the damage from that ban was overstated — he claims Tumblr didn't lose nearly as many users as commonly believed — and that the site can revive old-school blogging and take a run at Facebook and Twitter.
First-order effects
- Automattic takes ownership of a distressed-but-intact social property whose moderation history — not user attrition — becomes the thing to fix first, per Mullenweg's claim about the ban.
- The interview directly repositions Tumblr as a challenger to Facebook and Twitter rather than a declining relic, setting expectations for Automattic's product roadmap.
Second-order effects
- Moderation economics get renegotiated: once Automattic controls the asset, the strict post-ban policy faces pressure to loosen, which is exactly what happened when [[a:984452|Tumblr's 2022 guideline update allowed nudity and mature themes while keeping explicit acts off-limits]] — partly because, as covered later, Apple's app-store rules constrain how far any reopening can go.
- Automattic has to split attention between WordPress and Tumblr; the eventual result, visible in the 2023 AMA, was shifting the majority of Tumblr's staff to other areas of Automattic to chase monetization.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, independent social platforms consolidate under a single operator betting on shared infrastructure — Automattic later attempted to migrate Tumblr's backend to WordPress before putting it on hold in 2025, showing the integration thesis is easier announced than executed.
- The arc from ban to partial reversal to app-store-constrained moderation suggests platform content rules are set less by community preference than by distribution gatekeepers like Apple — a structural constraint every owner of Tumblr inherits.
The trend: Independent blogging networks are consolidating under WordPress-era operators trying to out-moderate and out-monetize the big social platforms, with app-store rules and integration costs dictating the pace.