ipreferlush answered:
In spite of my earlier “I’m out” reblog, I am actually super torn.
Factors to consider (buckle in, I have a lot to say about this):
- I’m super anti-censorship and ultimately that’s all this boils down to. They don’t want to do the work to responsibly run a platform that includes adult content, so they’re going to jump on the, nudity is bad bandwagon. The part of me that knows you vote with your money (time, etc) wants to take the moral high road and boycott. I don’t agree with what they’re doing, which means ethically, I feel very motivated to take my business elsewhere, entirely, unapologetically, and permanently (because I don’t see them going back from this, they’ve been prepping for it for a long time).
- That being said, a boycott might be just what they need. Star bright, star light, first star I see in the sky tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, make a wish on you tonight: I wish Tumblr experiences a mass exodus, never recovers, and joins MySpace in the graveyard of platforms passed. They deserve to fucking sink for this. Amen.
- As much as I would love to see Tumblr fail, they won’t: formal prediction, you can quote me on that. Tumblr is one of the most popular social media/blogging platforms on the internet. In spite of the fact that it was built on NSFW content, new users are joining all the time and those new users will not have the same expectations of the platform that existing users do. You can’t miss what you never had. They’re also banking more people shifting to SFW blogging rather than leaving outright, which is a likely reality. For a lot of people there are a lot of reasons to stay in spite of their initial distress over this decision. Besides, Facebook is still going and thriving in spite of the Russian hacking scandal and their repetitive gross mishandling of user information. Tumblr will recover.
- And here’s the thing, as much as I think they deserve to fail and as much as The petty, spiteful part of me would like to see them fail, there’s still not a comparable platform, and I know that. When it comes to features (types of post, ability to customize, layouts, sharing, user engagement, etc), there’s not another site that even comes close, which is honestly infuriating, because it would be easier to let go if I had something else I liked even remotely as much.
- Further, all my favorite content, both SFW and NSFW is on tumblr. The thing is, I could ultimately live without the NSFW content. There are other kink sites I could check out, it just makes me mad that now I have to. The best thing about Tumblr was that you could find and express the full array of your interests in one place.
- In their efforts to “purify” the internet, Tumblr seems to be targeting porn, specifically nudity. Wellllll, I don’t post nudes and never have, which might put me in a unique position to see how far I can push the envelope with my clothes on. Oh, you want to classify this post as NSFW? Well my nipples aren’t showing so how about fuck you.
- PS my heart is literally breaking for all the sex workers who rely on this site for advertising, this is devastating. However, I’ve seen how creative all you badasses are and with a little ingenuity, maybe you could swerve rather than delete. Post “sfw” (i.e. not explicit) advertisements to Tumblr with links to the platforms where you keep your actual content (Manyvids, Snapchat, Patreon, etc). It’s pretty much what I see most of you doing anyway, but with the shift to clothed only images attached to the posts. It looks like they’re not going to try to censor text content at this time, just images, so you could still use explicit language to describe what viewers will find connected to the links as needed. Erotica should also be safe. I know many of you rely on tumblr for advertising purposes and it would be great to see you keep your following while shoving your boots in the ass of the beurocracy. I’m cheering for you!!!
- I’m not a sex worker, but I am a writer and at the end of the day, this is still the platform where I have the biggest following. For promotional purposes it seems kind of stupid to just give up my biggest audience.
Thanks for asking, I really needed to get that off my chest. I could still go either way. I’ll need to look again at their new guidelines and what specifically they’ll be censoring, but if I do decide to stay, you bet your ass I’m going to give them hell. If I go, I’ll be sure to let you know where you can find me.
For anyone who made it all the way through this, care to weigh in? Should we revolt or stay and lead the revolution from within?