Some creators have begun to worry that Bluesky has tightened restrictions on adult content. The concern has spread quickly, and for good reason — we’ve all been burned before by platforms turning hostile to NSFW artists. So let’s take a look at what happened.

Bluesky’s updated guidelines (Sept. 19, 2025) explicitly state that consensual adult sexual content is allowed — including fictional depictions — as long as it’s properly labeled and age-restricted.

Here’s a look at the old Community Guidelines, as of May 22, 2024.

Here are the updated guidelines, as of Sept. 19, 2025.

In short:

Although the new Bluesky Community Guidelines don’t pose an immediate threat to NSFW-content creators, there’s still a discussion we need to have about those content labels — and it’s a discussion that’s being led by people who are getting a déjà vu feeling from their experience on Tumblr.

Once upon a time, Tumblr — like Bluesky — was a very welcoming place for creators of NSFW art. And it, too, had an internal culture that strongly encouraged tagging content.

Tumblr’s tagging and reblog systems were widely used for helpful things — trigger warnings, community discovery, and finding fandom posts — but there are multiple community posts and safety guides showing those same features could be weaponized. Harassers used tags, reblogs, and coordinated reporting to amplify attacks on creators; safety guides even advised avoiding public tags or obfuscating them to reduce targeting. (See footnotes below.)

Many Tumblr ex-pats are warning their peers about how tagging can be (and has been) weaponized.

On one hand, it’s easy to see how using labels would enable a platform like Bluesky to continue to safely support adult content. By enabling users to make their decisions on what they’re willing to see in their feeds, Bluesky reduces the risk of a group like Collective Shout to apply pressure to remove that content completely. It’s a very common-sense solution. However, it’s important to keep in mind the history of NSFW content on the Web as we navigate forward.

For NSFW-content creators, the impulse to assume the worst is understandable. We’ve faced real risks in the past, and we know how precarious our space can feel. But that’s exactly why it’s important to separate rumor from fact. If we react to every change as if it’s a disaster, we risk exhausting ourselves — and when an actual threat arises, it becomes harder to mobilize effectively.

Our community is strong, creative, and resourceful. Part of protecting that strength is making sure we don’t get swept up in unnecessary fear. Sometimes, a policy update is just that — an update. The sky isn’t falling.

The Cartoonist Cooperative has started organizing Zap sessions to take collective action regarding censorship & pay discrimination for 18+, erotic, and NSFW artists. For information about participating, go to their Discord (https://cartoonist.coop/join/).

The following explainer is by Nero Villagallos O'Reilly. It was originally posted here on the Cartoonist Coop Bluesky feed. (https://bsky.app/profile/cartoonist.coop/post/3lv7hiccgo22c)

*To be clear: The recent addition of clauses that assert some platforms’ rights to use your content to train their A.I. is not necessary to display your work.