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.
Some good news, I’ve been talking to two developers now and got them working together, we just had a meeting with the guys behind an existing large (millions of users) site similar to Tumblr, with a vibrant and open-minded community, and more importantly, it has open-minded owners who believe in free speech. They think we can get something done here to rescue the whole community.
I’m not allowed to reveal the site name yet. I can tell you it’s mainstream, open to everyone, open-minded and welcoming. (It’s not WordPress or any site owned by Facebook or Twitter. It’s not Pillowfort, that’s in closed beta. It’s not Ello, that’s mainly for artists. It’s not kinkspace or fetlife, those are too specialist. It’s not jux, that seems to be closed. It’s not Soup, that seems still in development and too small.)
One of the reasons for delaying the announcement for next few days is they don’t want a “land grab” where people take the names of current popular Tumblr users over there (cyber squatting). So they are looking at ways for existing Tumblr users to keep the same names on the new site.
More info over the days to come.
The plan is, broadly:
1. By December 9th, announcement of the new site and how to secure your username there
2. By December 10th, an online tool for bloggers to copy their existing content to the new site automatically, with the same tags and captions.
3. Bloggers will need to copy their content across between December 10th and December 17th if they want to use the automatic tool.
4. My understanding is that after December 17th there will be no public access to any “flagged” posts on Tumblr, but the original poster will still be able to see the flagged post (for a short time at least). Therefore, the original poster may still be able to manually download a post to their own PC or phone, after December 17th, and manually upload it to the other site. But if you have lots of posts that will take a long time, it will be better to use the automatic tool before December 17th.
Please understand that these dates are approximate and may change for technical or other reasons.
There may be a few rough edges or not so perfect looking site design on the transfer tool. Everyone is doing their best. The main goal here is to help as many people as possible preserve access to their content, in the short space of time Tumblr has allowed us, and preserve as much as possible of the Tumblr community spirit somewhere new.
The new site will cater for photo, GIF, text and html posts. It will not offer video and audio posts, due to cost reasons – maybe in future, but for now you will need to preserve video and audio content yourself in some other place.
If your Tumblr blog has a mixture of original content and reblogs, or all reblogs, all of that can be copied over to the new site. Reblogs will become “your” original content if nobody else posted them yet, otherwise they will be shown as reblogs. The devs are looking at ways to preserve attribution of reblogs back to the original Tumblr poster, if that person also moves to the new site.
Important: your Likes cannot be copied from Tumblr to the new site. You will have to go find the same posts again on the new site, and like them afresh.
(Similarly, existing reblog comments, asks, messages and other user interaction on Tumblr cannot be copied to the new site – that’s just too much to do, in the short time available.)
If you want to preserve any of your existing Liked posts on Tumblr, you will need to either: (1) download the post to your own PC, or: (2A) reblog it now to your own Tumblr blog, and then (2B) use the automatic tool, before December 17th, to move your whole Tumblr blog across to the new site.
If you have Liked a lot of posts here on Tumblr, the gridllr.com webapp should be able to help you do steps 1 and 2A quickly, I mean download or reblog.
(Someone complained to me today about the appearance of Gridllr on a phone. It’s best to use Gridllr on a PC, Mac or Tablet with a large screen.)
If you have liked a post here on Tumblr and the original poster decides to delete it, or even to delete their entire blog, some time before December 17th, then that post will be permanently lost. So if you want to be sure to preserve any of your Liked posts, you should best download or reblog as soon as possible. If it’s reblogged to your own blog it is safe from deletion, at least for next few days.
Obviously, you will lose access, after December 17th, to all past posts you have liked, if Tumblr has flagged them as NSFW. Again, the steps (1), or (2A) and (2B) covered above will be the only way to hold on to these posts.
Oh I so hope this works. It would be great to get this out so we can try to get as many people as possible all back in one place and not split up all over different platforms.
We all have seen the Tumblr communicate about forbidding nsfw blogs or those which have “adult” posts.
They think it won’t cause them any harm, but we are a really big part of the community. Let’s act and tell the staff that tumblr will slowly die after taking this decision. Follow these steps:
First of all, REBLOG THIS POST, so any NSFW blog can post and see it.
Give tumblr the worst mark at the App Store or Play Store
Write a negative comment about how they’re banning accounts and censoring the freedom of expression.
Purpose as a comment below a new site to move as a NSFW community.
If you do this before the 17 of December, we can change this decision. Let’s make the staff hear us. Make tumblr great again, a free place for free minds and free content!!
(Edit – In the coming days, if Tumblr doesn’t change it’s mind, I’ll make a new post to discuss the new platform we should ALL move as the former NSFW Tumblr community.)
Personally, I enjoyed every single moment here at tumblr, and I appreciate everyone of my followers and blogs that I follow. If they delete my account… It was a pleasure to know you all. But we can still change this!!!
Curious musings 