The potential strength of attention (blackout) strikes
Some of us have decided to go forward with the strike during these days as originally planned, regardless of the reversal. And with organizers leaving it up to individuals to choose whether to do it or not, I myself was on the fence as to whether it was worth doing anyway, but with so many people resolved on doing it to show staff that we won’t back down, I decided to join in as well for some of it.
And though it’s become an individual choice at this point specifically, I want to propose the idea of a consistent attention strike in the near future, as it seems the staff may just look for alternative ways of changing reblog functions we want to keep, and I think we should try to get on the same page about strategy if it comes down to it.
And if it does comes to it, we of course need to do other actions we all did in the last few days: submitting feedback tickets, leaving reviews on the app store, reblogging their update posts with our thoughts, cancelling subs, etc. So we all need to stay alert to coming changes.
So why attention strikes, on top of it all?
Many people in the comments of previous posts brought up valid points about the legitimacy of blackout strikes and I want to try to address them here.
For the most part, these people claimed futility in doing the action in the first place, and I completely understand that feeling! But I also want to show that we’re all a lot more on the same page about this than we may think!
We ALL know that in this era of technofeudalism, what runs the (digital) economy is our attention. So theoretically, if we withhold it, then theoretically we should be able to make things stop right?
But as these people brought up: “We need a LOT more people involved”, “We can’t have an end date! Otherwise they’ll just wait it out!” and “Would it not be better if we all logged off at the same time instead of all spread out?”
And all of these people voiced their hopelessness at even trying, but we’re all still on the same page that at the end of the day, withholding our attention does have potential. What we haven’t figured out is the right strategy.
As far as I know (thanks to the comments actually), there have only been a handful of attempted attention strikes in the past, but for the most part, this is all uncharted territory. I think in terms of dynamic, digital netizens have similarities to workers in that they are, and have, resources to be exploited for economic growth, with very little say in any of it. But other than that? Everything is different: The risks, the conditions, the methods of organizing people, consensus building... all of these variables are different.
So I think where typical labour strikes have had a couple centuries to experiment and figure out what works, we ourselves are at the beginning of this technofeudal era, and are just beginning to figure out what kind of digital pushback works, and we have a lot of experimenting to do before we fully give up on some ideas.
Attention strike variables
So there are a few points for strategy that are up for debate:
Time zones – do they matter?
Should everyone log out at once? Or do we spread it out?
End dates – do we need them?
What about the number of people needed?
Do we need a list of demands?
What about activity itself – do queues count? Can we post if its calling out staff? Do we log out or just not use the platform? etc
What about the time spent once back? (if one spends more time than usual on the platform the day after leaving to “catch up”, does it defeat the purpose?)
How do we reach more people to join us?
Disadvantages I can think of us having:
We won’t know how things are on the platform (in this case Tumblr)’s side of things. How much money are they actually losing from it? How much is it actually effecting their operations?
We won’t know how many other users are also on strike, nor for how long – we’ll have to trust that others are doing the same, or be okay with theoretically doing it alone (I suppose in this case it’s similar to regular boycotts, as with BDS)
As stated earlier, this is all uncharted territory so there have no been no studies on the subject yet, and it would be difficult to correlate any actual effectiveness without actual information from the platform’s side
So there’s a lot to figure out, and a lot to keep in mind. But all we have to lose gain is our attention.
So what about the near future?
Potential major enshittification is still on the table for Tumblr so we should stay alert. This is a space for community and for cooperation, not for note-stealing competition and harassment. This is our space and I think it’s well worth fighting for.
We have a few originally planned blackout days still coming up, so participate if you will, or be ready to join if bad news comes out soon, if you want to join. But after those days are past, I want to suggest a specific strategy:
Short and regular blackouts with no specified end.
So say, once a week, or twice a month or so, we have set days where we collectively regularly abandon the site. We leave on those days (we can all decide on a time zone if we think it’s important), and the next day we come back, until the next blackout.
The reason I think this could (potentially) work is because:
1. The long term nature of it means more and more people can learn about it and join over time. We can spread the word naturally around fandoms and the site in general, and let the idea take root and grow. We can also keep an open discussion for changes if we notice certain things need to be tweaked. And more importantly:
2. As it always is with protests, it’s not a sprint, but a marathon, and this would be more sustainable. From what I’ve seen of other blackout strikes, they usually pick one date, make it last a day or two, and then call for an extension with no set end date after things don’t change.
I’m mostly referring to the Reddit Blackout Strike that happened in 2023; and in no way do I want to put down their strategy or their work – I actually think what they were able to do was genuinely impressive! But now we must learn from that and try something a little different! (And hell, even they were able to cause "a fair amount of trouble").
And as we all now know, when it’s a short period of time, the platform can just “wait it out”. And if organizers call on people to extend their blackout, realistically, people are just gradually gonna come back over time regardless of how much they wanted to participate in the first place. These platforms are our spaces, they’re where we “hang out” in a way; I don’t think many people are ready to abandon the platform they love for an indefinite amount of time, and that’s completely fair.
So what if they just wait it out every time? Doesn’t matter. As far as I understand it, even if they know we’re going offline, they’ll still have less eyes and clicks to monetize. They rely on steady and predictable activity to monetize us, and even if we leave at predictable times, I imagine ad slots on those days wouldn’t pay off as much as they would on other days.
Maybe this could work, maybe it won’t. I really don’t know. But I just thought it would be worth putting out there anyway.
Some expressed doubt at the earlier calls for blackout strikes, and I’m honestly glad they did because I think these doubts are important to address and keep in mind. So please do let me know what you guys think of all this.
In general there are a lot of questions in this, and I myself am far from an expert and have a lot to learn and research, but I just think... there could be potential in this that could be explored.
One last thing I want to remind people is that, major change rarely ever actually needs 'the majority of people'. Usually, a strong, vocal and consistent minority can be enough to bring change; so let's try not to get too defeatist if we don't see everyone participate in protest (for Tumblr but also in general).
Anyways this post ended up a lot longer than I originally expected oops... but thank you for reading this far and please do share your thoughts<3
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