Tumblr Purge: General Thoughts

[blackcoffeeanddarknights]

I felt like writing a bit about how I feel about the Tumblr Purge, so, in random order, here are some thoughts.

1. I feel like there's this assumption from people on other platforms that those of us leaving Tumblr are doing so because we can't get porn on the site anymore? It's a fair assumption, but it's not an accurate one. Not while Tumblr's bot system is flagging SFW posts.

How do you share art when any picture with skin is flagged?

2. Tumblr's been falling apart for a while now, and I think those of us on it were just counting down until it crashed and burned. I really feel that staff on Tumblr isn't really invested in the platform; I suspect that the only reason it exists now is because it provides some rudimentary income.

There's this idea I've seen floating around that one day, Staff will realize that they've kicked everyone off of Tumblr, and they'll regret their terrible decisions? Except I'm not sure that anyone in Yahoo actually *cares* what happens to the platform.

Hence why it's falling apart.

3. It's too bad that Tumblr *is* crashing, because I feel that a lot of people- myself included- were able to use it as a way of consistently exposing ourselves to new and different kinds of content, in a way that's hard to do on other sites. Tumblr exposed me to leftist theory and commentary, taught me about the history of LGBT people in the US, and provided easy-to-access communities focused around niche interests.

In some ways, it was actually a really useful source of learning and information! It's just... no longer Like That.

4. It's worth noting that while Tumblr is cracking down on NSFW posts (whether or not those posts are *actually* nsfw or not), it's done nothing about the radical right. And that... is only to be expected, I suppose, but it's still exhausting to see.

Comments

[mistydayjudge]

I agree with all of your points. The NSFW ban is a huge deal, yes, but there's a much bigger picture a lot of people seem to be forgetting and that's that Tumblr's staff is ill equipped to handle moderation of any kind. Their staff is very small for a website that large and their attempts at using bots fail constantly. As someone who has been on for more than 9 years I've seen a lot of it first hand.
Even if they do reverse the decision, this has shown their true colors and doesn't prevent them from doing it again. The Vox article only increases my concern with future issues.

Hopefully we can recreate communities here or somewhere else to continue learning from each other. :/

[mathemagicalschema]

Yeah, frankly, I wouldn't be that upset by the terms of the new policy if A) its introduction weren't so impressively tone-deaf and B) if I had any faith whatsoever that the written policy was the real policy.

When the bot flags an illustration of dinosaurs or something, it's hilarious and infuriating, but could be just a good-faith mistake. When all-text posts get flagged, or certain tags don't turn up results, and so on, that very clearly shows that the written policy is not the real policy and was never intended to be. On top of that, the policy as written is far too subjective to be enforced by a bot, and far too lenient to please advertisers, which is what this change has always been about.

[mistydayjudge]

I understand. I'm personally upset by the new policy period since about 1/3 or so of the content I consumed was adult oriented. A lot being indie content creators who fostered a pleasant atmosphere. Like many have said before me, it's a place for people to explore sexuality without feeling overly gross. And content for LGBT+ users by LBGT+ users was much easier to find and share.

If only the invested more in Safe Mode and required birthdates at sign up. Just goes back to bad management.

[blackcoffeeanddarknights]

That's actually a really good point that, truthfully, I hadn't even thought about.

Like, I remember reading this transgender person talking about how they found spaces on Tumblr where they could explore their sexuality *as* a trans person, without the fetishization that usually accompanies sexual portrayal of trans bodies.

And I didn't think about it much at the time, but truthfully, that's *important*. LGBT adults, and especially trans adults, *need* positive portrayals of their bodies and sexualities. It's important for helping people grow comfortable in their skin.

And Tumblr was *really* good for that; I can't think of any other social media platform that allows for the same amount of expression.

[blackcoffeeanddarknights]

Yeah. I think the biggest thing, too, is that I have no doubt it's not going to get *better*, you know? There's no improving from here. Staff just... doesn't care.

I actually haven't seen the Vox article; I'll look it up soon though. I didn't know that anyone outside of Tumblr proper was paying attention to the current "purge".

I'm really looking forwards to using Dreamwidth- it's got a format that really, really jives with me- but I'm going to miss the flexibility of Tumblr a lot.

[mistydayjudge]

Oh the incident absolutely blew up on Twitter and a bunch of people ran stories about it. The Vox article has some newer info from a former Tumblr employee that really just made me even angrier at them as a whole and realize they won't change.

I'm going to miss Tumblr's style as well...

[mathemagicalschema]

"I suspect that the only reason it exists now is because it provides some rudimentary income" - I deeply doubt that tumblr earns enough revenue to even cover its own costs. Tumblr was never considered a valuable property on the basis of its current financial performance - like every other venture-funded social media company, investors simply assumed that they could focus on building the userbase first, and then figure out how to monetize.

Problem is, they're attempting to monetize without any real understanding of their site culture, and they allowed their site culture to develop in a rather advertiser-unfriendly direction. Millenials and Gen-Z are a difficult audience to market to. They have limited disposable income, and they're much more responsive to advertising that seems more personal and "authentic." (like the Denny's tumblr, or podcast endorsements.) Tumblr/Oath/Verizon wants to use Facebook-like monetization strategies on a social media site that is basically the anti-Facebook. And it's not going to work.

This is the start of a death spiral. The harder they try to monetize, the more users they're going to lose, which is going to make their ad space a less attractive investment, which is going to lower the price they can charge, which is going to force them to monetize more aggressively, which is going to push more users away, etc. etc.

Frankly, I don't see any way for Tumblr to survive in the long run without a change in ownership - I can explain why if you like.

And yeah, honestly, I'm going to miss Tumblr. More than any other site, it's great at showing me content that I never would have gone out of my way to find, and it has a really unique meme culture. Oh well, it was going to die someday.

[blackcoffeeanddarknights]

That makes sense. It's going to be interesting to see how the internet changes as people leave Tumblr to post elsewhere. Truthfully, I kind of expect Twitter's culture to change somewhat as people migrate there, because that seems to be the big one that people on my dash are talking about leaving for.

I'd be really interested in hearing you elaborate more, tbh. You've explained it really well already, but I *love* getting into the nitty gritty of situations like this.

Yeah. I feel bad about it, but... I mean, it's been headed downhill for a long time. I'm kind of relieved to finally be permanently leaving.

[isabellerecs]

Wonderfully put, I agree entirely with you and the previous commenters.

I feel so . . . offended by the announcement that they put out. The blog I run is not NSFW, it's a text-based fanfiction recommendation blog but that smarmy message about going in a "positive direction" (as if sex was inherently negative) and "safe for the children" really stuck in my craw. There are tons of places to go on the internet that are wholly SFW, but very few NSFW LGBTQ+ that aren't exploitive. And that is my other point of offence, the real reason they've cracked down is that the current community (largely LGBTQ+) on Tumblr has been deemed too difficult to monetize and they hope by pushing the "undesirables" out that more influenceable parties will replace them. Nazis apparently are a marketable demographic.

So my rage leads me to explore my options away from Tumblr, which makes me sad because there was real good going on there. And I mean that on a personal level. At nearly 30, I learned quite by accident what an asexual was and it meant that I no longer thought of myself as "broken" because I didn't know that what I was was something that other people out there would recognize and identify as. That ability to discover things you didn't know you were looking for feels diminished. I really hope that a new platform that provides that, be it Pillowfort, or someplace else comes along soon.

[blackcoffeeanddarknights]

Yeah, it really, *really* bothered me that they came after the NSFW blogs with their bad, shitty bot system, and completely ignored the Nazi blogs on their site. I *really* don't see how you can make Tumblr a more positive place without doing something about the far right.

Yeah, and like, Tumblr was *so* good for LGBT+ people (within the right circles). It allowed people to see content *by* LGBT+ people *for* LGBT+ people, which is hard to find on other sites.

Me too. I'm actually hopeful about Pillowfort; I'd have signed up already, but the five dollar fee scared me off, lol. I figure I'll wait and see if it grows enough to be worth paying for.

[isabellerecs]

I agree the fee does worry me. Not that I'm incapable of paying it, but more because that at this stage in the game we really don't know what we're getting.

Is the site even up again, I know it crashed again after coming back up after its "maintenance/security" thingy?

Will fandom really go there?

Does it really allow NSFW content (there does seem to be some debate about what is meant by some kinds of NSFW that Pillowfort's own posts alluded to)?

So many questions without hard and fast answers, like you I plan to reserve judgment. I figure it's no bad thing to cool my heels here on DW and network for a time.

P.S. If you haven't read it already I'd recommend greywash's post about previous fandom migrations and what could be next: https://greywash.dreamwidth.org/46038.html. It was interesting to be reminded that the transition from LJ to Tumblr had not been all that quick in real time, but had happened over the course of a few years.