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Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

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Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#242
post #21

My daughter at 12 got sucked into Tumblr and developed an eating disorder. She was in this gigantic web of pro-ana tumblrs with crazy diet plans that tell you to eat like 100 calories a day. Then the app would just keep suggesting more, "skin and bones", "thinspo", "meanspo". Holy crap there are some scary corners of Tumblr. I of course am more mindful of what she looks at, but she was hiding it and I can't monitor e…

Not to point out the obvious, but the content you are talking about isn't going to be affected. The issue with banning adult content, is that it often ends up being more easy to ban all adult content and LGBTQ+ content. Generally speaking, people on the fringes lose a safe place to discuss issues that matter to them, due to keyword proximity to pornographic keywords.

Likewise we can't ban/censor our way to good parenting nor will it prevent people (not just kids) from finding bad information in the internet.

If anything the kids will stop using Tumblr at a faster rate once all of the false-positives of the censorship stuff blocks basic enjoyment.

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#243

Anyone have stats on how much of Tumblr is adult? My impression was that it is a huge percentage of it.

I've never been on a tumblr that wasn't adult..

Also, I believe on mobile you "had" to use their app if you wanted to see 18+ content users.

So they were indirectly promoting their app with nsfw content...

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#244
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, they don't have "other issues" - because recommendation algorithms drive people down the conspiracy rabbit holes. Conspiracy, fear, hate - they all drive engagement better than anything else. And since we all optimize for engagement, guess where things are heading. And no matter how resilient you are, there's some really dark shit out there. Ready to tear down even rather healthy people.

optimize for engagement This to me seems like it's the key to all of this, or at least a portion of it that really shouldn't be ignored. As I shared, if my ex had other ongoing issues under the surface, they were never presented and she did a great job keeping the visible symptoms from manifesting for the better part of three years. Maybe she didn't realize they were there herself, hard to blame anyone for that. It d…

Optimization for engagement is actually quite scary to me: because the effects upon the user (beyond engagement) are literally meaningless. If the system can burn out your mental health while increasing engagement, it can and will make that choice.

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#245
post #21

My daughter at 12 got sucked into Tumblr and developed an eating disorder. She was in this gigantic web of pro-ana tumblrs with crazy diet plans that tell you to eat like 100 calories a day. Then the app would just keep suggesting more, "skin and bones", "thinspo", "meanspo". Holy crap there are some scary corners of Tumblr. I of course am more mindful of what she looks at, but she was hiding it and I can't monitor e…

This sort of stuff furthers my resolve to give my kids dumbphones and PCs with no internet access until they're at least 14 or 15, with plenty of education beforehand. For example, at school we got taught about anorexia, body image and coping strategies in junior high. If they need to get online they can use the family PC in the living room that's in full view of everyone.

My observation is that what I can only call information operations on Tumblr are very similar in form to various groups retweeting divisive political memes on Twitter or other social media. Most likely it has been freelance individuals with some sort of sexual fetish, not an organization, but still. It's not normal user behavior to be constantly re-posting and mashing up memes all day long every day encouraging pre-teen girls to be anorexic.

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#246
post #21

My daughter at 12 got sucked into Tumblr and developed an eating disorder. She was in this gigantic web of pro-ana tumblrs with crazy diet plans that tell you to eat like 100 calories a day. Then the app would just keep suggesting more, "skin and bones", "thinspo", "meanspo". Holy crap there are some scary corners of Tumblr. I of course am more mindful of what she looks at, but she was hiding it and I can't monitor e…

Why can't you monitor (almost) everything? Unless it's at a friend's house, my ten-year-old has no access to tumblr. I fail to understand why children must have access to internet connected devices.

Just on google, children are a few clicks and a word or two away from hardcore porn. I agree that a parent who gives their child open internet access has to accept their kid will probably see disturbing things before they’re ready, or strictly restrict and monitor everything. I’m not even sure how feasible or reasonable it is to try.

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#247

I figured the writing was on the wall with that whole garbage static page, along with "Disabled due to safe-mode". Of course, you had to have an account and all its bullshit to 'turn off' safe mode. Whereas, reddit, imgur, pornhub, and all of them have no safe-mode garbage. Reddit has a click-thru if you hit a sub on a work machine (and then you can bail out). But yeah, this is setting a "dead by" date probably 6 mon…

Tumblr has been repeatedly valued at around $0, and I believe Yahoo did a huge write down at one point. I think they know this will kill the site and that's intentional. Tumblr has never been successfully monetized for various reasons, and occasionally generates bad press. It's sad - the "old internet" is quickly dying off. It basically leaves image boards, non-default Reddit, and SA.

I've heard a lot of people are back on Usenet these days? Discord really doesn't do it for me.

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. So many artists, photographers and models used tumblr to showcase their work. It was also easy to link your blog to a .com with little to no webdev experience. The only other social media network out there with a following that allows near the same level of expression is twitter and I have already seen posts from artists directing their followers there. But twitter is no real substitute to what tumblr offered…

I'd say instagram is the other big one for artists, not twitter. Instagram has all the functionality of tumblr with even more accessibility.

I've known several photographers who have lost 25k, 100k+ followings by being banned from instagram for posts that did not break the ToS. This has been devastating to their careers as freelance artists. I wouldn't recommend leaving a more tolerant platform (tumblr) to put all your eggs in a FB owned basket. With instagram, it all seems to depend on who the mod is who got assigned the reported photo to look at. Many of these artists now run a backup instagram and promote it on their primary account about once every 2 weeks to keep a solid follower count on it in case their main gets the hammer.

Re: Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

#250
post #21

My daughter at 12 got sucked into Tumblr and developed an eating disorder. She was in this gigantic web of pro-ana tumblrs with crazy diet plans that tell you to eat like 100 calories a day. Then the app would just keep suggesting more, "skin and bones", "thinspo", "meanspo". Holy crap there are some scary corners of Tumblr. I of course am more mindful of what she looks at, but she was hiding it and I can't monitor e…

This sort of stuff furthers my resolve to give my kids dumbphones and PCs with no internet access until they're at least 14 or 15, with plenty of education beforehand. For example, at school we got taught about anorexia, body image and coping strategies in junior high. If they need to get online they can use the family PC in the living room that's in full view of everyone. My observation is that what I can only call…

My observation is that what I can only call information operations on Tumblr are very similar in form to various groups retweeting divisive political memes on Twitter or other social media.

I'm sure it's no different on any other platform, so I hope this comment isn't seen as some way to skewer tumblr for being unique in this regard: but the number of times I've stumbled across content spreading some nugget of content about a health-condition, mental state of being or current event that is OBJECTIVELY untrue getting eager reshares and comments applauding the original poster that would cause any trained professional to expire from the horror is staggering to behold sometimes.

Again, not unique to tumblr, not here to suggest it is, but since it's the focus of the conversation we're having, there it is.

Already I've seen people I follow talking about leaving the platform because of this decision, which is going to hurt my own blog as I rely on them to discover new and interesting content (not porn, but I'm a big fan of futurist artwork, giant robots, Ralph McQuarie style space paintings, stuff like that).

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