Just dropping by with a site update...you’ll now see this image in place of all images flagged by Tumblr’s bumblrs as naughty (even though there wasn’t even a nipple to be seen in any of ‘em):
(I wish I had thought of this before deleting all my naughty posts). As for finding a new home, I’ve looked at all the so-called “Tumblr alternatives” but none of them pass muster, if I do find a place and decide to upload I’ll post an update. ‘Bye.
Well, folks, there’s no point in beating this dead horse any further, the fandom that led me here is no more, my db is fairly empty as most of the blogs I’ve followed have disappeared following the December 17 purge, and I feel like I’m just shouting into an empty room every time I post something...and the perpetual risk of deletion by the bumblrs in charge just kills any remaining interest one could possibly still have to remain loyal to such a place…I’d like to give one final massive ~HUG~ to everyone who reached out to me during my darkest days these last five (!!!) years and helped keep me in an alive state of being (my days are still pretty dark, but that’s the new norm, I guess). I’ll keep the ask open for anyone who just wants to drop in and say ‘hi’ and if I do find a decent site to put all the now-censored edits I’ll definitely return to post the link. And if the bumblrs do delete me you can still reach me on Instagram (so bookmark that if you haven’t already).
NOTE: For all latest, breaking news related to Tumblr adult content ban as well as its alternatives, head here. So Tumblr’s adult content ban came into force yesterday (December 17). The company came up with a new blog post announcing this, while emphasizing on aspects like flagged items won’t be deleted, the platform fully recognizes […]
Before the ban, their Google Play Store rating was 4.4. Here we are, three weeks later and an endless scroll of negative reviews/comments, and their rating is now...4.4. Yeah, right, whatever, totally legit, just like Yelp.
Be aware of the titty. Or pudenda. Or anything else suggesting a copulative angle familiar to most adults with a decent constituency of desire. The world of Tumblr, home of the expressive identity and sexual subculture, has shrunk before the pressings of those averse to the flesh, and much more besides. The theocrats around the world will be proud; puritans will be celebrating with book-burning (app ridding?) excitement. The cult of the safe will have asserted itself with ghastly certainty under the usual pretext of protecting people from the serpent’s apple. In ignorant boredom, you are safe.
Two weeks ago, the sharing and microblogging site announced that it would be imposing a new set of guidelines. Not that this would have surprised anyone plugged into the modern zeitgeist of virtual censorship. The platform has, at points, engaged in such grand acts of condescension as reverting to “Safe Mode” and removing any reference to explicit content. “If the service is still working for you but the Safe Mode is turned on,” wrote Vikas Shukla for Value Walk in November, “you can manually turn it off to enter the forbidden land.”
That, it transpired, was linked to claims last month that child pornography had waded made its murky way through the site’s filters, leading to Apple banning it from its iOS App Store. The blow was so apparent as to make Motherboard remark that, “With its massive distribution and strict rules, Apple’s App Store has had a broad homogenizing and sanitizing effect on the internet.”
Mandatory in any such announcements is the preliminary salute to openness, a sure sign that it is about to be modified, if not done away with altogether. “Since its founding in 2007,” comes the explanation from CEO Jeff D’Onofrio, “Tumblr has always been a place for wide open, creative self-expression at the heart of the community and culture.” The pensiveness follows. “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.” (The censors have been agitating.)
In true organisation agitprop, Tumblr claimed it had to change. Community members were supposedly consulted, but evidently only certain ones. “Today, we’re taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions).”
This is telling: Tumblr has retreated into a world without adults, and embraced a childish, sex-free, or at the very least unsexualised space of engagement. But it is far more than that: the platform will be a “safe place for creative expression, self-discovery, and a deep sense of community.” The discomforting will be eschewed like the plague; the propagandists of safety will be heralded.
The company seeks to assure users that this new policy “should not be confused” with standard protocols on child protection, “including child pornography” which “has no place in our community.” While all “bad actors” can never be prevented from using the Tumblr platform, “we make it our highest priority to keep the community as safe as possible.”
The company admits, like all good censors both actual and prospective, that the task of “filtering this type of content” comes with its problems. “Automated tools” are being used to “identity adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check.”
A parental note of apology prevails: we are aware you will be unhappy being restrained from seeing or doing certain things, and mistakes will be made. When these happen, it “sucks”. Daddy D’Onofrio is clear on this: if you wish to see subject matter featuring adult content, take your viewing, and loading habits, elsewhere. We are playing happy families here in “creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.”
Many users reacted with the understandable rage of people forcibly infantilised, while also noting that other content – for instance stomach churning subject matter from the alt-right – remained permissible. (Mammary glands insufferable; Hitler, not exactly fun but tolerable.) Otherwise innocent posts were also netted, the result, according to the BBC, of “poorly performing algorithms”.
The company in its December 17 post, issued clarifications and adjustments. Posts containing GIFs, videos, and photos in violation of the platform’s policy would not be confined to oblivion but hidden. Such content would be flagged, in which case an appeal might be made. To puzzled identitarians, Tumblr “will always be a place to explore your identity”, a home for the “marginalised”.
This has been something of a snag for the content filterers given the frequent excursions of troublesome sexual fancy, or matters of the body, that finds its way onto the site. “LGBTQ+ conversations, exploration of sexuality and gender, efforts to document the lives and challenges of those in the sex worker industry, and posts with pictures, videos, and GIFs of gender-confirmation surgery are all examples of content that is not only permitted on Tumblr but actively encouraged.” Where the policy fits with dull heterosexual matters is less clear.
The December 17 post also seeks to clarify, if somewhat clumsily, that “erotica, nudity related to political or newsworthy speech, and nudity found in art, specifically sculptures and illustrations, is also stuff that can be freely posted on Tumblr.” And if you want further details, breast-feeding shots displaying the nipple suckled will be fine, including “birth or after-birth moments, and health-related situations, such as post-mastectomy or gender confirmation surgery.” (Such sanitised delights!)
The protests have been thickening the social media sphere, but these are about as confronting as damp lettuce in search of a colander. There will be no street protests, and it is unlikely that a massive exodus from the site will be precipitated. A Log Off Protest is being staged by groups wishing to avoid Tumblr for the first day of the ban, though it is unlikely to invoke the changes demanded. Central to the digital sharing age is not enthusiastic diversity but inadvertent submission; the tech controllers intent on predicting and ultimately influencing human behaviour have become a modern priestly caste.
A sense of the amateurish revolt against these minders, revealing a child-still-in-swaddling-clothes mentality, can be found in a post insisting that the log off be for at least two days, if not seven. Don’t delete the app. “Make noise elsewhere.” Even think of using other platforms, but importantly “do not give up.” Months might pass, maybe years “to make them realize that the adult band [sic] is bad. That Nazis and bots will exist after this.”
The rage of social media is, for all that, quick fire and amnesiac. The greater lesson in Tumblr’s approach is the realisation that the Internet and the world of apps, sharing and expression did not usher in an endless frontier of expression and engagement, but one as policed as any other. Market your service as if to children, and be spared the trouble.
Oh and by the fucking way...how about that time some mother fucking gun freak showed up here and reblogged some obscure little personal rant of mine, mistaking what I said (because he’s stupid) as something about gun control and setting his bitchy little temper off along with his sick-o reich wing buddies (I can’t begin to tell you how dirty I felt knowing my blog name was appearing on these sick bastards’ pages)...the name of the site was “fuckyourguncontrol” if you can believe it -- talk about SICK! The only way for this pig to have ever found my post was to have typed the words “gun control” in the search box and repeatedly refreshing the screen...someone who spends his time typing phrases in the search box that specifically trigger his temper and hitting "refresh" over and over and over all day is one seriously sick sociopathic fuck. Well, he and his fucktarded friends are still here but hey this place is totally safe for kids now because there’ll be no noodz...sheesh.
Because I'm still pissed at Tumblr, I've decided to upload the official (and final) holiday edit on Instagram instead of here --https://www.instagram.com/p/BrWK3y2FoE8/
Of course it’s not Tumblr!
They came for Craigslist personals first because that’s the oldest trick in the book: Sneakily taking down the ‘perverts’ under the guise of vague, high morality goals and working slowly up from the bottom, picking off larger and larger targets. Few people cared about CL because of the stereotype of scary unwashed creeps trawling for sex online. That wasn’t so familiar or cute so it was fair game.
Tumblr is biting at the ‘artists’ heels and suddenly there is a bit more noise, because artists aren’t supposed to be treated like shit, are they? However even now the hair-splitting over what’s porn and therefore garbage and not-art shows that attitudes are not so different. It’s still the same divisive, dangerous us v.s. them mentality that is so easily exploited.
This is why when people tell me I shouldn’t worry about this because ‘my art isn’t porn anyway’ it makes me angry. It means so much more than drawings or a silly blog. This is about people being slowly phased out of their freedoms, rights and agency. History has shown time and time again that whenever power wants to make a crushing move backwards, it comes for what it declares ‘obscene’ first. People are raised to be scared and ignorant of sex so it’s an easy gateway. When they come cracking down on sex is when we most need to pay very close attention. They are not protecting us.
Yeah. This isn’t about whether *you*, specifically, don’t want NSFW content shoved in front of your eyeballs, it’s about whether the people who want to see NSFW content have the right to see it *at all*.
It’s also about what counts as ‘nsfw’ or ‘pornographic’ content. The article hints at it but doesn’t state it directly, but LGBT content - any LGBT content, even the most G-rated or strictly informative kind - is usually an early target in the name of ‘cleaning up’ a website. (YouTube, for example, is already guilty of doing this.)
So, I haven’t received any official emails from Asshole Central alerting me about my images being “flagged” but I came across two in the app that have the “flagged” banner -- but on the website there’s no banner or anything...I don’t have time to scroll through four years of stuff, how exactly can I see which posts have been flagged here? Or am I asking for too much from these bumblers?
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