many people were confused about some of my previous posts, so for the sake of clarity i am condensing everything!
tumblr has extremely transphobic moderation practices, often flagging completely innocent posts as explicit, solely for containing trans women in them or mentioning transgenderism. while letting untagged porn in sfw tags (ive literally seen porn tagged as "sfw agere") and blatent hatespeech, especially twards trans people (just look at the "gender critical" tag) go completely unchecked
recently the CEO of tumblr had a big public hissyfit about people (rightfully) calling him transmysogenistic, going into random trans womens dms to harrass them, and saying that predstrogen saying she "hopes he explodes with hammers and then explodes again and hammers fly everywhere" is a death threat and saying he is calling the FBI on her (repeatedly misgendering her and calling her "it")
and many bloggers, apon speaking out about it or even making harmless jokes (one trans woman posted a picture of a car and a hammer with the caption "reblog to scare matt" and got nuked for it) and many are very very angry (rightfully) about this whole affair and tumblr in general.
if you would like to look into it i reccomend scrolling the "predstrogen" tag as she is the case most people are talking about at the moment.
So, what can we do?
this is clearly an ongoing issue, and, dispite having lost a lawsuit about their transphobic moderation in the past (see : https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21274288-tumblr-nycchr-settlement) its clearly not gonna stop with just user complaints, as staff members are perfectly content to just go scorched earth on users who even so much as lightly poke fun at them
well if you want to help you should contact the human rights commision (i will give clear details further down) ! you dont have to be in the US, nor be an adult to file, and it only takes a few minutes. this is the best and most effective method to fix this, because it hits tumblr where it hurts.
human rights acencies have a lot of legal and financial power and tumblr CAN NOT just ignore them, and given that this will be the seccond time this is happening, the commisions shouldnt be playing nice anymore eaither.
its really important that AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE FILE, and with different examples! while maybe your case might not be enough to prop up a lawsuit on its own, we need to prove a general trend. so every little bit counts!
to respond to another question abt this ive gotten, as for what exactly to report, you should a) write about an act of discrimination youve recieved on tumblr that was eaither administered by a staff member OR that staff refused to give adequate moderation action in
for example : a terf posted some blatent hatespeech targeted twards you, and you reported them, and staff looked at the issue and refused to persecute it.
example 2 : you were unfairly flagged, deleted, or otherwise punished by a staff member and you are queer ( AND the post they banned you for has some kind of tie to your gender, ex : a sfw transition progress photo )
OR b) if you have not personally recieved something like that, please look for other peoples stories (THEY SHOULDNT BE HARD TO FIND, within the last couple of hours trans people have been being banned LEFT AND RIGHT for trying to speak on this. i would reccomend checking some of the tags related to what happened with predstrogen)
and you should describe that incident as best as possible (be sure to disclose that you are speaking for someone else, ideally you should tell the story of someone you know, if possible.) you can also mention any reports you have made twards people posting blatent hatespeech that, opon reveiwing tumblr refused to prosecute dispite it being very obviously against terms of service.
just so nobody gets confused about the filing process, im laying it out in more plain languadge!!
first you should email the SF HRC (san francisco human rights commision), at [email protected] and say something along these lines :
Hello, I am [full name] from [country or state] and I am filing a complaint against Tumblr, witch is owned by the parent company Automattic Inc. located at 60 29th St, San Francisco, CA 94110.
Tumblr has had previous issues with the NYC DHR for their moderation being unfairly biased against trans women (see : https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21274288-tumblr-nycchr-settlement).
Despite a legally binding agreement with the NYC DHR, staff members still regularly harrass users based on their gender or sexual orientations. For example : on [date of most recent infraction] [describe incident]
(if you are describing an incident that did not happen to you specifically, say something like) This incident involves the user [username] who I am not affiliated with (or/) who I am filing on behalf of.
I can be reached for further inquiries about this incident at [email you want to talk over] or [phone number you want to talk over]. (if you would like to be anonymous) However, In the event of legal prosecution against Automattic I would refer to be kept anonymous, where possible, in court proceedings.
alternatively, you can also call the SF HRC at : 415-252-2500, you can use the above text as a starting point for this as well,
next you want to fill out the form for the NYC DHR (new york city department of human rights) here : https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/about/report-discrimination.page
for company you wanna put : Automattic and/or Tumblr
for address you wanna put : 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003
for phone number you wanna put : (646) 513-4321
and for category of discrimination you can put : Discriminatory harassment
and basis of discrimination you can put : Gender; Gender identity
you can then use a similar script on the written section of the form.
when describing a specific incident, you should attach as many screenshots and links as possible! (for links, include both a live link and an archival link, so take a capture with the internet archive and have that as an alternative, incase a staff member gets petty.)
this should only take a few minutes at most, and it helps alot!
you can fill this out if you are a minor, and you dont have to be a us resident, please please take the time!!!
and, just to clarify because there are many posts going around that are confused about this
tumblr moved offices to san francisco recently, so their main HQ is at : 60 29th St, San Francisco, CA 94110
they DO still have an office in new york city, and thats where their PREVIOUS HQ was, the address is : 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003
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