This is how much porn you can find on Tumblr, according to researchers

The internet's porn bubble is largely disconnected from the more PG-13 websites, like Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.

There's very little overlap in these public forums, partly because of communal responsibility in case children are reading, and partly because sex can be a private matter.

An Italian study has recently looked into the prevalence of pornography on microblogging website Tumblr and image sharing website Flickr.

A group of researchers investigated to what extent porn producers on those websites are isolated from the community and to what extent their content pervades the site - and who is viewing it.

They found that very few people make pornography for these websites - 0.1 per cent of users for Tumblr and 0.43 per cent for Flickr.

However consumers - people who follow and sometimes share or reblog producers' posts - account for 21.5 per cent of Tumblr users, and 5 per cent of Flickr users (Flickr doesn't really allow sharing).

For users under 25, there were just as many male and female consumers of porn, but as age increases the balance shifts towards men.

Tumblr's community guidelines state:

You can embed anything in a Tumblr post as long as it's lawful and follows our other guidelines, but please don't use Tumblr's Upload Video feature to upload sexually explicit video. We're not in the business of hosting adult-oriented videos (and it's f---ing expensive).

While a good portion of Tumblr users were active consumers (21.5 per cent) many were unintentionally exposed to pornography (28.5 per cent).

Just under half were not exposed to pornography on the website.

In short, pornography is more prevalent in public spheres on the internet than we'd think, and Tumblr seems to be ok with it.

HT Refinery29

More: Amazon’s latest gadget talked to a toddler... About porn