When did freedom of expression suddenly become an online crime? When did an attack on a specific subset of any group ever work to the benefit of any institution?
In this bloggers humble opinion, Tumblr’s December 17th forced genocide of Adult Content blogs is just another example of how our society is slipping backwards in its level of tolerance towards anything that is different, preferring to have this type of content hidden away, and marked with a scarlet letter of intolerance and shame.
Are there issues revolving around certain types of blogs Yes. Child pornography and other unacceptably content is abhorrent to all. Is Tumblr going after those specific types of blogs? No. Are they setting up a system that blocks minors from accessing adult content blogs? No. They are preferring to follow a simplistic “nuke it all” approach rather than address the overall problem. Taking a M.A.D (mutually assured destruction) approach, can only end in one way, for without adult content, Tumblr will die off.
So my friends and followers(93k amazing individuals), I challenge you to reblog this note, and challenge Tumblr’s decision. Perhaps, if enough of us stand up and protest some good will come of it. Resist, and fight the good, and honourable, fight.
Sounds drastic. Especially for content creators who may still need Tumblr for commissions while they find an alternative.
If you can swing it, here’s why:
I suspect that the December 17th deadline is so that Verizon/Yahoo can clean house and make Tumblr appealing to investors. This is a Q4/Q1 fire sale kind of thing. It makes a certain amount of business sense to make this change. Human-lead content curation (e.g. separating the CP from the legit) is expensive and time-consuming. I doubt they have the money for it. They already sold off Flickr. As a long-time Flickr pro user, I’m not pleased by the change and increase in pro account price, but I get it.
Investors are looking for a user base. User base is a prime attraction for investment or buy-out for a social media platform or application (I speak from experience as a co-founder of Rhinobird.tv).
Every account that is cancelled will be one less account in Tumblr’s user base for their pitch. I assume that there are millions of accounts with some percentage simply being abandoned accounts that haven’t been used in years. So cancelling one’s account on the way out the door won’t really matter unless the number of cancelled accounts reaches several hundred thousand at least.
If you decide to leave and cancel, then I also recommend sending a polite message to Tumblr staff, or tweet to the account about why you are leaving.
Finally, using Twitter to voice your concerns and thoughts about this issue will increase its visibility. They ain’t gonna like that. Media outlets that cater to tech entrepreneurs, and Silicon Valley types are going to be all over this.
I never ask for reblogs, but I will this one time.
Let’s take a look at some screenshots of an article I was reading earlier today…
Keyword: was. They don’t support net neutrality anymore. Why you ask? well…
Tumblr is owned by Yahoo. Now that Verizon (a company that hates net neutrality) bought Yahoo, they have demanded that Tumblr must stop supporting net neutrality too. The Tumblr staff has stopped posting about net neutrality.
This site is being forced to hate net neutrality. (article link)
Owned by Verizon. Tumblr is nothing but the big corporations bitch.
“Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore — Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!” Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.” ― Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven
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