Dreamwidth is a name that you or someone you know may soon be familiar with thanks to a recent move made by Tumblr regarding pornographic content.
The site was co-founded by Denise Paolucci and it has been around since 2008 but it’s received 10 times as much traffic over the last day or so due to Tumblr’s decision to ban “adult content” from its site. This has led creators to move their NSFW content elsewhere, namely Dreamwidth, which is a user-first blogging site.
The site is against advertising, VC funding and the corporate model as it focuses instead on user privacy, control and freedom. Former Tumblr users started flocking to the site after people went to social media to mention the fact that they can now consume that content on Dreamwidth.
A site with a similar philosophy called Pillowfort.io, created by Julie Baritz, also received 10 times as much traffic as usual thanks to the word-of-mouth Twitter campaign. Much like Dreamwidth, Pillowfort allows users to post NSFW as long as they aren’t breaking any laws.
“It’s funny that adult and sexual content has become the linchpin and turning point of our popularity in a way, but I’m not surprised,” said Baritz. Pillowfort is technically still in beta and this migration could be a good barometer of what type of site Pillowfort will become, as well as the capacity it can handle.
