Reddit Welcomes NSFW Desktop Image Uploads Before Imgur Ban

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If you've been worried about how you'll be uploading explicit images of your desktop to Reddit after Imgur was banned and purged on May 15th, now you can rest easy. On Thursday, Reddit began allowing the uploading of images not safe for work (NSFW) from desktop computers to communities restricted to users aged 18 and over, as spotted by TechCrunch.

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"This now gives us feature parity with our mobile apps, which (as you know) already have this feature," reads the Reddit announcement on the r/modnews subreddit.

As of May 15, image hosting site Imgur will no longer allow nudity, pornography, or sexually explicit content and will remove all images that fall under this category.

The expected impact is remarkable, given Imgur's decades-long reputation for hosting all kinds of high-res images. It's also notable for Redditors who dabble in naughty posts. Although Reddit started allowing users to directly upload images to the site in 2016, many users still used Imgur for their explicit imagery needs. The developer of third-party Reddit client Apollo, after hearing about the upcoming Imgur ban, noted that Imgur had been the "primary location for NSFW Reddit image uploads, since Reddit does not allow uploads explicit from the desktop". But with Imgur days away from a big purge (including inactive content unrelated to Imgur user accounts), Reddit will pick up the capacity, offering an option for its desktop users.

In April, Reddit announced that it would "restrict access to mature content via our Data API as part of an ongoing effort to provide safeguards to how sexually explicit content and communities on Reddit are discovered and viewed". When asked this week if enabling explicit image uploads on desktop meant users would be able to upload images through the API, a Reddit admin replied that it was something Reddit was "still chatting".

The Apollo developer responded by saying that the developer community would be happy to be able to access NSFW subreddits "to some extent".

Either way, Reddit's new policy won't sit well with anti-porn groups like the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (formerly Morality in Media). As reported by Vice earlier this month, the group, highlighting concerns about explicit content involving or being viewed by children and victims of sexual abuse, was already urging Reddit to update its policies, including highlighting implements "strict policies against hardcore pornography and sexually explicit content, due to Reddit's failure to sufficiently verify the age or consent of those depicted in such content" and to "prohibit users who upload sexually explicit".

Disclosure: Advance Publications, which owns Ars Technica's parent company, Condé Nast, is Reddit's largest shareholder.