In a terms-of-service update, Imgur has announced that on May 15th they will begin removing all "nudity, pornography, and sexually explicit content" using automatic detection algorithms.

This will result in the removal of a vast quantity of NSFW content from reddit, including stuff that is years old.

Most redditors who post NSFW content host it on imgur because reddit does not allow users to directly upload NSFW content (except via the official reddit app). Browse any NSFW sub, and the majority of the images you see are hosted on imgur, as well as many of the gifs. While the actual reddit posts will remain after imgur's purge, the images and gifs that those posts link to will become broken links. Imgur says this themselves:

Once the content has been removed, it will no longer be visible with a direct link and will not be visible in the post you've created.

The image hosting website that was created as a gift for Reddit and became what it is because of Reddit, is now backstabbing Redditors.

"What does this mean for me?"

Here are some quick bullet points:

1. The vast majority of NSFW images and gifs on reddit are about to become dead links starting May 15, 2023.
2. If there is any NSFW content you want to preserve, start downloading and saving it NOW.
3. People need to identify alternative hosting sites that allow NSFW content and play nice with reddit, and they need to do it NOW.
4. In the meantime, get used to uploading NSFW stuff using the official reddit app. For however long reddit allows that loophole.

(See this discussion for a list of imgur alternatives)

Going Forward

Imgur is now banned from the /r/dnd_nsfw subreddit, as there is no point in allowing content that will be dead links in under a month. The domain whitelist will be updated to allow links to websites in the list of Imgur alternatives above.