Indonesia Bans Tumblr for "Pornographic Content," Yahoo Investors Quiet

Indonesia announced it would ban Tumblr and 477 other websites for their “pornographic content,” according to a statement made Wednesday by Azhar Hashim, a director of the country’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the Jakarta Globe reports.
The decision was made by the ministry’s panel on pornographic content. The ministry ordered internet service providers to block access to the sites.
Hashim said Tumblr could be un-blocked if it stopped displaying pornographic images, but noted that the Indonesian government has not yet re-opened any sites it has blocked in the country, according to the BBC.
The country blocked access to Vimeo, Reddit and Imugr in 2014 for similar reasons, according to Tech Asia.
The loss of Indonesian users has the potential to hurt Tumblr, especially as eMarketer released a report Wednesday expecting the social network’s user base to plateau.
“This will be the last year Tumblr will grow by double digits,” the internet research firm noted. Tumblr is expected to add less than a quarter of the users Instagram is projected to add by 2020, according to eMarketer research.
Yahoo! Inc. YHOO shares have taken a beating after lowering guidance for 2016 in quarterly earnings two weeks ago. The Tumblr ban is another bruise for Yahoo, which purchased the site in 2013 for $1.1 billion.
Despite the news, Yahoo shares were up slightly in pre-market trading.

Benzinga reached out to Yahoo for comment and had not received any at press time.