Thoughts on the Tumblr Purge
My friends, I am old. I have been an internet denizen since the days of dial up text-only BBS proto-web. I used modems to talk to people over computers before AOL was sending out free FLOPPY DISKS. My first computer had NO HARD DRIVE- you read that right, it did not possess a hard drive. It ran DOS 2.0 off off a floppy disc in drive B while I used whatever program in Drive A. I have been posting fan fiction online since before it was called fan fiction. I posted stories to a BBS on a board named “Media INSPIRED Stories and Art” or MISA for short back in 1988 or so.
So, I’ve seen this kind of thing happen before. People are talking about the ff.net purge, and the LJ strikethrough and, believe me, they are RIGHT to call back to those events. But I can tell you, it was happening before then. I know this pattern. It is very predictable.
I have seen it happen with Facebook ‘secret groups’, with yahoo clubs/groups, with geocities and angelfire sites, AOL chatrooms and ‘clubs’, all the way back to Compuserv and popular BBS systems.
Do NOT take comfort, however small, in the fact that the guidelines CURRENTLY state that written erotica will be safe, because it will NOT stay that way.
It is SOP to target art and photography FIRST- it’s the easiest to sell as a protective measure for ‘children’ who aren’t supposed to be able to access the site in the first place. They are banking on being able to disregard any criticism, no matter how accurate, by spinning the same tired talking points about underage access to ‘pornography’. They are BANKING on the social stigma of seeking out sexually explicit or kink-oriented images to silence the majority of people impacted.
They are COUNTING on the people who read and write sexually explicit and kink-oriented STORIES to get scared, check the guidelines and go “welp, sucks for artists, but whew!” and do… virtually nothing.
Because then, all the artists and photographers leave. Some will find new venues, others will stop creating altogether. Content will be lost. Forever.
Once the dust settles from that, the guidelines will change again. Because NOW the most scandalous thing on the site will be written content. Suddenly ‘explicit fiction’ will start being called ‘pornography’ and the exact same concerns that let them flush all the sexual visual media from the site will send the fic-writers down the same path.
They HAVE to do it that way, because they only have the power to get away with it when they SPLIT THE ART/CREATOR COMMUNITY IN HALF.
What is happening now is the first half of a divide and conquer strategy that works really, really well.
I’m pretty pro-porn, pro-kink, pro-sex in general, but even if you are staunchly ANTI-PORN, you need to be very worried right now.
Am I peeved that I’m going to lose access to some really great explicit art that I enjoy? Yeah, a bit. I’m not afraid to admit that. I am 43 years old and I recognize that I am a bit of a hedonist (like most humans) and that dirty pictures make parts of my brain real happy. That’s just… basic neurology for most (but not all) people.
Am I writing this because I am peeved about losing those dirty pictures? HELL NO. I am writing this because I know what’s coming. It’s a tired old joke to me by now.
What’s coming is an ever-increasing restriction on content. What’s coming is a site that uses ‘think of the children!’ (that, again, are not supposed to even have access to this site to begin with) as a way to silence more and more and more people.
Before long, political posts will be flagged as inappropriate, LGBTQIA+ content will be called ‘sensitive’ or ‘too mature’, the restrictions on art and fiction will get more and more and more stringent, people will get blocked or flagged for simply stating that they are a sexual violence survivor, resources for victims of oppression will dry up, ANY mention of Religion or Spirituality will be discouraged.
If ANY of that is important to you, even if you HATE pornography in all its possible forms, for any number of reasons, you need to be concerned! You do. Because sooner or later, something you DO care about and support will be the thing in the crosshairs and you’ll discover two things: (1) the people who cared about fighting censorship are long gone, and (2) you are now the ‘lowlife’ in the eyes of the people that remain that you once considered the ‘pornographers’ to be… and maybe, just maybe, you were as wrong about them as the people who think you are the one that deserves to get booted are about you.
The ‘slippery slope’ is a famous logical fallacy. I’m not talking about a slippery slope- I’m talking about a well documented pattern of behavior that has been happening regularly in regards to policing internet spaces since internet spaces have existed. This isn’t a slippery slope situation. This is an established and effective way to censor and disenfranchise internet communities.
Do NOT delude yourself into thinking you are safe. You aren’t.
And if you think “they wouldn’t risk destroying the site! It would be financial suicide!” you don’t understand the countless ways that huge corporations can make money off of a failing forum!
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