deleted a bunch of chronic pain and chronic illness posts from blogs they’ve left (like mine)
This isn’t just about ‘oh no you can’t look at people fucking anymore’ (even though lots of sex workers are losing their means of supporting themselves). This goes a lot further, with a lot more chilling effects.
The sexualizing of things like ‘top surgery’ or declaring all ‘trans’ tagged things to be … sexual… is really, REALLY fucked up. Never mind the fact that ‘chronic pain’ had NOTHING to do with sexiness, and we’ve been given no explanation as to why disabled people were considered acceptable collateral damage.
ALSO I had a post flagged earlier today for a cartoon picture of Mario in a bathing suit. Mario, from Super Mario Brothers.
Someone else reported a picture of a cartoon scorpion with a hard hat on being flagged as pornography. Tagging things as ‘queer’ or ‘gay’ gets them flagged NSFW. (Hey, guess what I’d been tagging my t-shirts, because they’re pride stuff? Oh right. Queer. Gay. Pride.)
This is a fucking problem, let’s not blow it off.
I know some people are too young (or simply weren’t involved in fandom back then) to remember what went down with livejournal and a couple of other sites “back in the day”, but it all started out as “it’s okay, we’re just removing the nasty porn”, and then “okay well, just make sure you put your porn behind a cut, no, wait jk you need to host it externally, a link is fine, maybe” and pretty much devolved swiftly into “actually sweety, LGBT content is inherently NSFW by default because it might make the kiddies gay if we expose them to it, so y’all need to leave now byyyeeee”.
Like…that happened. And it took nearly a decade for the fandom spaces to recover and stabilize and to get to the point where LGBT content creators could host their content without being told “you’re not welcome here” and I’m just sitting here, watching as youtube demonetizes LGBT content creators, and Facebook flags up LGBT ads as “inappropriate” and now tumblr is going through the queer and gay tags and just mass blanketing it as inappropriate, while actual pornbots and nazis wind up in my recommended feed.
Like I am uncomfortable y’all. I am looking around at everything I’ve built and all the friends I’ve made and I know we’re all looking for the next safe space to jump to while hoping we don’t lose each other overnight like “the olden days” where you’d wake up and your fave blogger was just gone.
And usually it was because they’d drawn or written something as simple yet explicit as a kiss. It was just the wrong kind of kiss.
So yea, the sky is not falling, but the ice under our feet sure is making worrying sounds.
If you think this is going anywhere but down, you’re lying to yourself. Ever since Yahoo bought out Tumblr they’ve been waiting to do this. It’s never been a question of if, it’s only been a question of when.
if you are a thorki fandom content creator and are comfortable filling out an spreadsheet’s worth of (entirely optional) info, click here.
why the spreadsheet? well, I saw a mutual complain about losing their fanbase, and tbh I have similar worries – it took me a while to get to the number of followers I have! and I don’t want to lose that!
so if you create content for the thorki fandom*, then you’re welcome to fill this form with as many details as you’re comfortable sharing. remember, only share stuff you’re comfortable having known to people. if you want to specify that something is available upon request, put AOR in that field
the form has space for every social media that I could think of (+ a field for any I might have missed) and it basically exists so the fandom doesn’t lose track of content creators, and so that content creators get a head start on new platforms without having to rebuild their fanbase from mutuals and scratch.
entirely optional, but public access, so please be careful!
note: you can add your friends/mutuals if they’re okay with it. please make sure that they are.
*what counts as content? original posts. headcanons, meta, round robins, fics, art, rec lists, edits, playlists. if you’re a moderator (or have ever been a moderator) please add that too—moderating is valuable!
lastly, please consider reblogging this post for maximum visibility: the link means it’s not going to show up in search results
So, if you can’t view your blog if you’re not logged in, give this a shot, but do be aware that the tumblr-native export tool doesn’t work on really large blogs. I don’t know the post limit, but I do know several people who have been stuck at ‘waiting’ for 5-6 months, with no completion date in sight. If you haven’t been flagged ‘adult’ or ‘explicit’ try something else first.
Yup. I got 50 thousand posts. I stopped trying after 18 hours of dl time.
Go save manually what you love and be ready for them to delete you if you can’t amend your blog to their “cleanliness” standards.
Yes, we have seen the news! We are planning to have the
site back up either tomorrow or Wednesday; we just have a couple last
security measures we want to put in place today, but we will be working on
it as quickly as possible and we will have a clearer ETA by tonight.
We will also try to come up with a way to lower the barrier to entry for new users, though we don’t want to drop the entry fee entirely because a) we feel that would be unfair to our users who have paid for their registration keys and b) we don’t think our servers could handle a massive influx of new users right now, so we’re going to try to allow as many new users as we can without capsizing the boat. We appreciate your patience and will have more details soon!
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
Well… that’s just….
Oh shit. I guess that explains the posts about jumping ship to Pillowfort and such. I guess that means I need to figure out how to back up my blog. Preferably in a way that doesn’t take weeks, but of course fandomites on the lam can’t be choosers…
There’s something that I fundamentally don’t understand about Article 13.
It doesn’t simply protect copyrighted content, it will also absolutely impact the bottom line of these big businesses too. This is how I see it.
Here’s my current fandom:
How did I get into Kingsman? Was it because I saw a trailer for it on TV and thought, “Hey, I should see that.”
Nope. It was via online fandom content almost two years after Kingsman: The Secret Service was released. I never would’ve given it the time of day if not for gifsets and fanfic that I saw and read before I’d even seen the movie. But I saw those things first, so the movie then caught my interest, and I watched it. Legally. I ended up purchasing movie tickets for the sequel, I bought the movies on Blu-ray, I bought some official Kingsman merchandise (don’t judge me), and I even spent a little money on one of the official Kingsman mobile games (like 20 dolla, and I’m not proud of it).
I spend a significant part of my online time interacting in the orbit of the Kingsman fandom. I look forward to the third movie (the actual third movie, not this weird prequel thing…ugh). I will actively spend money on the movie and probably some official merchandise when it’s released too. I also have an interest in the actors from the movie and legally seek out their other work (even Robin Hood, haaaa). Meaning I intend to SPEND MONEY on things related to Kingsman because fandom content keeps my interest going long beyond its official release. Fandom content is often what will catch my interest in the first place.
My fandom before Kingsman?
When I got into Marvel/Captain America, how do you think that happened?
Did I see trailers before other movies? TV commercials? Was it because of people I knew in real life who enjoyed it? Nope. I rarely see any promotional material for things because I don’t normally take in content in the traditional way (the same as most other Millennials and Gen Z, I’d wager). I knew of them, obviously, because they’re insanely popular. But I didn’t give a shit.
I didn’t give a lick about Marvel and it wasn’t until I saw some fan commentary and gifsets on Tumblr/in fan spaces of Captain America: The Winter Soldier that I was like, “Oooh, this sounds interesting. I need to watch this.”
And I watched it. Legally. And I bought it. Legally. And I went out and legally watched everything else Marvel. I bought legal/licensed Marvel merchandise. I bought Marvel comics, ffs. Do you think I cared about comics before that? At this point, I’ve probably spent a good few hundred dollars on Marvel related content. Probably closer to $1000 than $100. And that’s mild compared to some people!
Do you think I would’ve done any of that if I hadn’t first seen fan created content that technically uses copyrighted material?
I sure the fuck would not. I would’ve gone on not caring about it at all.
My point is, Article 13 is so fucking short-sighted. Fandom and creative content made by people not associated with these businesses often makes or breaks that content. How many people do you think got into Marvel the same way I did? How many millions of dollars have people spent on Marvel related merchandise because fandom content fostered their interest way beyond “See it in the movie theatre, then go home and forget about it?”
Here’s another example for the other end of the spectrum:
Avatar. The James Cameron movie. It made $2.7 billion at the box office worldwide. That’s nice. But does anyone really give a shit about it? I’ve never seen it. Don’t have any desire to see it or the supposed upcoming sequels. The only online content I see about it? Mocks it. There is no fandom.
To compare fandoms on Ao3:
No one gives a shit. No one is looking for Avatar. Maybe the sequels will do well, I’m not a psychic. I have no idea. But my point is, there is no longevity there. No one is looking for official Avatar merchandise. No one is creating works about it that keeps interest going years after it was released. And continued interest means continued profit.
So Avatar did really, really well at the box office. Exceptionally well. And then?
Are people buying Avatar clothing? Books? Mugs, tchotchkes, spending thousands of dollars to meet the cast and creators at conventions? Special editions of the movies? Collector’s items?
Google “Avatar pop” and what do you think comes up? Pop! figures for the Avatar movie? Nope. There aren’t any. Are there Pop! figures for Avatar: The Last Airbender, which has a healthy online fandom presence? Yep.
Supernatural is an excellent example as well. A small show on a struggling network. Isn’t it on season 247 at this point? What do you think helped it last as long as it has? All that sweet network promo? The A-List status of its stars (hahahaha)?
HAAAAA! NO! It’s the fucking fan content! All the fanvids, fanfic, artwork, gifsets, commentary, discussions, meta, and beyond. All those creations get seen by hundreds, thousands of people who may have never heard of it before. But it’s that kind of content that sparks an interest. If you’re in that fandom, think of the coolest piece of art (or the best fanfic), that’s what inspires people to seek something out. That’s what cultivates an interest for years, including purchasing god knows what for god knows how much money. Terribly photoshopped ~official~ promo pictures and a couple commercials ain’t gonna do it.
Does the below image make me go “LOL WHAT? wats happening? wats going on? wat is this????”
Ya. Dark, morbid, funny. Sounds interesting…
Does the below official image make me go, “Oooh, gotta watch whatever that is!”
It sure the fuck does not. Sorry Jensen Ackles, you’re good looking and all, but nah. Can’t say I have any interest in whatever that is. WHY ARE YOU IN A CAGE? WHAT IS THAT CHAIN FOR? help me i’m scared
ANYWAY. Which content style above is going to inspire and cultivate enough of a longterm interest that people are willing to buy board games, clothing, jewelry, DVD sets, magazines, go to conventions, buy god knows what else, and spread the word about the show? For over a decade? It ain’t the second picture, I can tell you that much.
Fan content creates new fans and cultivates longterm interest which earns big businesses more money.
That is one of many reasons why Article 13 is shit. For fan content creators and for big business. It’s not a threat to the big business bottom line, it’s free promotion.
I BEG YOU. DO NOT SCROLL PAST THIS.
Need the EU’s Directive on Copyright
Article 13 explained to you or a friend in a different way you might get? READ OP’s post now and pass it on!
Baldursbrá 