Like. I’m a firm believer that porn online shouldn’t be within kids reach (those “are you 18” checkboxes for life) but. Like. Ok first of all, just ban cp? It’s not hard? Cp is what got you into this mess just ban it. Second of all, you could increase the age of sign-up from 13 to 18. Third of all, you could do what deviantart does and just. Require birthdays at sign-up. If your blog is flagged as nsfw, you can’t interact with minors. You want to follow an nsfw blog? Prove you’re an adult. You’re an adult but don’t want to see nsfw content? Safe search (that actually works).
It’s not hard to make a functioning website, but staff doesn’t seem to want to do that.
I love how their post says “A better, more positive Tumblr” as if female nipples are what’s ruining the experience on this website and not bullies, racists, homophobes and actual nazis
the whole “this is good for kids” thing doesn’t….really make sense. like if they wanted to protect minors then 1. making sure there was no CP on the site and 2. enforcing the explicit blog function correctly would be the top priority. The sex workers i know/have seen on this site make use of the explict blog function and repeatedly block/warn people under 18/21 not to interact with them or they’ll get blocked. the wording of the new rules is very obviously targeting sex workers and tumblr’s transphobic definition of women. This is just a heavy handed two sided slap to get back on the app store and hurt the sex workers that rely on this site even more. also i’m pretty sure removing nazi’s would fall under “protecting children” but…here we are!
From someone who’s survived MySpace, livejournal, deviantart, and fanfiction.nets’ content purges and bad policy updates, here’s some advice on how to get through tumblr’s recent bullshit:
– don’t knee jerk delete. I know it’s tempting to peace out immediately but hang on and do the other steps first. Out right ghosting and erasing everything is how fandoms die.
– archive everything on your blog you want to keep
– tell your followers how they can archive and keep your work too. A lot of fic and art were only saved from ff.net and lj because other people saved it first. If you’re cool with other people saving your work for them to personally keep, let them know this. You can absolutely discourage reposting but I really do highly recommend you allow people to personally save fic and art they like and are worried will disappear forever. Digital Dark Ages are a real thing.
– tell people where you’re jumping ship to. Give links. Keep that info up, even if you’ve left the site.
– go through who you follow and find out where else you can follow them. Save their work if they’ll allow it. It’s tedious as hell but if you want to keep up with people on here clicking on their page to check in is the best way to do it.
– support places like ao3. This is exactly why ao3 asks for donations a few times a year. They are a 100% anti-purging, judgement free, ad free non profit run by an elected board and protected by lawyers. Places like ao3 literally save fandom so please continue to support them and other similar archives. This is exactly why ao3 is so important.
OneLastReasonToBreathe 