Jeff Toorish | Exploration

A Blog About Exploring The World

[jefftoorish]

Why the Amazon forest fires aren’t the only threat to the region and its indigenous people

Documentary filmmaker and Yarmouth native Jeff Toorish says while the focus is on the fires, the indigenous people are facing bigger problems, including genocide.

The Real Threat to the Indigenous People of the Amazon.

The true threat is not fires, it is the current political regime.

[staff]

A better, more positive Tumblr

Since its founding in 2007, Tumblr has always been a place for wide open, creative self-expression at the heart of community and culture. To borrow from our founder David Karp, we’re proud to have inspired a generation of artists, writers, creators, curators, and crusaders to redefine our culture and to help empower individuality.

Over the past several months, and inspired by our storied past, we’ve given serious thought to who we want to be to our community moving forward and have been hard at work laying the foundation for a better Tumblr. We’ve realized that in order to continue to fulfill our promise and place in culture, especially as it evolves, we must change. Some of that change began with fostering more constructive dialogue among our community members. Today, we’re taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions).  

Let’s first be unequivocal about something that should not be confused with today’s policy change: posting anything that is harmful to minors, including child pornography, is abhorrent and has no place in our community. We’ve always had and always will have a zero tolerance policy for this type of content. To this end, we continuously invest in the enforcement of this policy, including industry-standard machine monitoring, a growing team of human moderators, and user tools that make it easy to report abuse. We also closely partner with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation, two invaluable organizations at the forefront of protecting our children from abuse, and through these partnerships we report violations of this policy to law enforcement authorities. We can never prevent all bad actors from attempting to abuse our platform, but we make it our highest priority to keep the community as safe as possible.

So what is changing?

Posts that contain adult content will no longer be allowed on Tumblr, and we’ve updated our Community Guidelines to reflect this policy change. We recognize Tumblr is also a place to speak freely about topics like art, sex positivity, your relationships, your sexuality, and your personal journey. We want to make sure that we continue to foster this type of diversity of expression in the community, so our new policy strives to strike a balance.

Why are we doing this?

It is our continued, humble aspiration that Tumblr be a safe place for creative expression, self-discovery, and a deep sense of community. As Tumblr continues to grow and evolve, and our understanding of our impact on our world becomes clearer, we have a responsibility to consider that impact across different age groups, demographics, cultures, and mindsets. We spent considerable time weighing the pros and cons of expression in the community that includes adult content. In doing so, it became clear that without this content we have the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves.

Bottom line: There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.

So what’s next?

Starting December 17, 2018, we will begin enforcing this new policy. Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose. All changes won’t happen overnight as something of this complexity takes time.

Another thing, filtering this type of content versus say, a political protest with nudity or the statue of David, is not simple at scale. We’re relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check. We know there will be mistakes, but we’ve done our best to create and enforce a policy that acknowledges the breadth of expression we see in the community.

Most importantly, we’re going to be as transparent as possible with you about the decisions we’re making and resources available to you, including more detailed information, product enhancements, and more content moderators to interface directly with the community and content.

Like you, we love Tumblr and what it’s come to mean for millions of people around the world. Our actions are out of love and hope for our community. We won’t always get this right, especially in the beginning, but we are determined to make your experience a positive one.

Jeff D’Onofrio CEO

[jefftoorish]

Bye, Tumblr. I wish you all the worst. It will be fun to watch your show decline and eventual failure.

[sunflowerseedsandscience]

REBLOG IF NAZIS OFFEND YOU MORE THAN NIPPLES.

[jefftoorish]

Why yes, yes they do.

[jefftoorish]

Bye

If you know me, you know that freedom of expression is incredibly important to me. While I understand social media sites such as Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter must exercise reasonable oversight of their platforms, it is also important to understand that these websites put themselves forward as the modern town square where ideas relationships can go forged and ideas can be discussed.

In the case of Facebook, they remove photos of indigenous people because a woman’s nipples are showing but allow Russian spies to subvert American Democracy -- or a better way to put it is that Facebook PROFITS from Russians destroying American Democracy but can’t find a way to monetize female nipples, hence idiotic guidelines that are as disingenuous as they are hypocritical.

Now Tumblr has decided to follow Facebook by banning all adult material. Whether you use Tumblr for your carnal viewing pleasures or not, this action flies in the face of Tumblr’s alleged purpose. Of course, there are things on Tumblr that some people find distasteful, or, rather put, pretty much everything on Tumblr is distasteful to someone. That is the nature of expression.

These sites are perfectly willing to allow the sinister manipulation of the masses as long as they can profit but make their hysterical stands against consenting expression often because tiny minorities object.

If Tumblr wanted to create an 18+ section it could easily have done so.  Instead, Tumblr chose the nuclear option of getting rid of all the adult material in one fell swoop.

I’m just not interested in being involved with sites that are not interested in free expression.

I will be deleting this blog on December 17th.

With that, I way Bye, Tumblr.

I wish you the worst.

[jefftoorish]

Heading back to Africa -- watch for updates.

[jefftoorish]

The Matis | Not The Jaguar People from JeffToorish on Vimeo.

The Matis are an indigenous tribe in Amazonia, Brazil. For most of their history, they lived and thrived deep in the Jungle. In the mid-1970s, the Brazillian Government made first contact with The Matis to devastating results. Many of the tribe died from diseases for which they had no immunity. Eventually, their numbers began to rebound. This short video is the result of a Flag Expedition from The Explorers Club. A team of researchers and explorers visited The Matis under the auspices of TEC Flag #208 in early 2018. This short will eventually become a longer documentary.

[jefftoorish]

These are members of the Matis Tribe who normally live in a protected section of the Amazon. They traveled several days to meet with our team in a remote section of the Amazon in Brazil for the purposes of research and documentation.

The Matis are hunters, gatherers, farmers, fishers, and warriors. The government of Brazil made first official contact with the Matis in 1974. Unfortunately, with that contact came diseases for which these exotic people had no immunity leaving their numbers devastated. By 1980 there were only a few more than a hundred Matis left.

Our expedition under the banner of Explorers Club Flag #208, has gathered critical data about the lives, practices, and rituals of the Matis. We will present a synopsis of our findings to The Explorers Club in March, along with a short film.

I will be preparing a longer documentary in the coming months.

For now, suffice to say that while the Matis’s numbers have rebounded, these amazing people continue to face uncertainty regarding the future of their most remarkable culture.

[jefftoorish]

Before venturing up the Amazon to join the Matis People in Brazil, we spent two days preparing in Leticia, Colombia, training. During that time we hiked into the jungle and spent some time with a  Yacuna medicine man. During our visit with him, he and some of his tribesmen made mombe, a mixture of coca leaf and ash which is chewed much like tobacco. 

He also told us about his arduous training to become a shaman, which included years of education living an ascetic life.

These photos were shot under extremely low light conditions inside his home using two LumeCube lights.

[jefftoorish]

Checked bags checked, carry on ready.

[jefftoorish]

At the airport in Bogotá. Heading to Leticia.

[jefftoorish]

This is my hotel room in Bogota -- I will only be here for a couple of nights. It has a terrific view of the city, but it is as hot as an oven during the day.

[jefftoorish]

This is the inReach Satellite uplink for the Matis Amazon Expedition. You can also follow our progress on Facebook at The Explorers Club or Feral Human Expeditions. 

We will post occasional text messages via the sat uplink. 

Keep watching here for photos and video when I can get them uploaded.

[jefftoorish]

Amazon Bound! 

Enroute to Columbia and then onto Brazil to document the Matis People.

This is an Explorers Club Flag Expedition, we will be carrying flag #208. Watch this space for more information.

[jefftoorish]

20160927VillageMedicineDoc-002 1 from JeffToorish on Vimeo.

[jefftoorish]

Zambezi River

Brandon and I made a little trek down to the river. The climb down is something like 800 feet, and is quite steep.

I have been doing a challenge to raise awareness of veteran suicide in the US. If you’d like to see the video, it is here: https://www.facebook.com/JeffToorish/videos/vb.1103955472/10209950399252287/?type=2&theater¬if_t=video_processed¬if_id=1473661038384228

The hike down to the river took us a couple of hours, but we did take a little dip into the river -- fortunately, no crocodiles noticed us.

[jefftoorish]

A few more from the Livingstone Crocodile Park.

[jefftoorish]

Crocodile Park today -- with some snakes and an adorable turtle.