♥ Welcome to my tumblr! ♥
I'm a Cosplayer, Filmmaker, Photographer, Artist, & Nerd; who's day job, is Freelance in Film in the Boston Area. ♥
I mainly post about my cosplay here but I will also post about other related things & stuff that is of interest to me. ^-^
♥ ~ Starlightslk
Having read through the actual announcements I think a lot of people are misinformed on what will actually happen when the 17th hits so I thought I’d give a minor heads up on what to actually expect.
Your blog won’t be deleted: They specifically said this. They aren’t removing blogs. Even if all your blog has on it is porn, it will still exist. The caveat is that if you continue to post content violating the new terms, like repeatedly and often, they will deactivate your account.
Your NSFW posts won’t be deleted: They will be marked private so that only you can see them. None of it will be lost.
If you do fear for your blog’s content, Tumblr has included a tool to completely back up your blog and move it elsewhere.
Click on Account
Choose Settings in the drop down
On the right you’ll see a list of your blogs, select the one you would like to back up.
Scroll to the bottom and you will find the export button.
Once you click the button it will take Tumblr time to compile your blog. Be patient. Once they have completed the operation they will email the account you signed up with to let you know the file is ready to download. Backing up my blog took a couple of days.
The file will include a complete HTML structure that will allow those of you with the technical know-how to create a clone of your blog in its current state elsewhere. All images, text posts, videos, everything will be in this file, including all your asks, and submissions.
Yes, it is. They stated that no account will be deleted, only adult contents will be oscured and and made private. But it’s not what is happening.
Tumblr is shadowbanning all visual artists, no matter if they have NSFW or SFW material on their blogs. And this is mainly damaging the visual artists in the fandoms. The proof? Until some time ago, typing “Johnlock” in the dashboard search bar, I had among the popular results, tons of fanarts from the most famous artists. The fanarts were the most immediate and numerous result of the research, I’m sure you remember this. Now it has completely changed. These are the search results on “Johnlock” search from today. There are almost exclusively text posts, chats, and memes. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against memes or text posts, they are great. The problem is that fanarts, manips, photosets, gifset, and even most of the actors’ photos have disappeared from the research.
Is it strange? Not a result from Anotherwellkeptsecret, Reapersun, Bluebellofbakerstreet? How is it possible? Because Tumblr doesn’t want fandom material on its site anymore, and it doesn’t give a toss if it’s SFW or not. You’re a fandom artist? You are punished by becoming invisible. So much for “SFW content is still allowed,” right? :))) No, in reality it is not. How are users supposed to find new artists to follow, if they’re shadowbanned? How are arists supposed to make themselves known and show their creations, if they can’t be seen? I surely don’t have to remind you that many artists use commissions to pay bills and as a help to live. If they are no longer visible, they will lose commissioners, and even if they don’t do commissions, this attitude of Tumblr will discourage them from creating new art, since they will be invisible. There will be less new contents, less ficlets written under fanarts (if I don’t see the fanart, I can’t write a ficlet inspired by it). We are all losing, due to the new Tumblr policy.
All of this adds up to other forms of boycott that Tumblr is using: - internal research that no longer works: you can no longer explore the tags in a blog, because you do not see any results; - some users don’t appear in the list of the notes to a post, even if they added something; - for many users, their most popular posts are no longer visible under their username and blog title;
Tumblr doesn’t even allow anymore a visual preview of its own links, inside and outside Tumblr:
Besides, there are the old problems this site always had, never solved and now even more serious. The @ function doesn’t work anymore for many of us, and many peole don’t receive notifications from other users who have addressed them specifically. Seeing what the situation is like, I don’t think they have the will to fix any of these errors.
Ultimately, we can also decide to remain here, but it’s clear that the site no longer wants us here, and it’s doing all it can to crush us and make us invisible.
But what can we do to fight back? Not much, I’m afraid. The only thig I can think about, is:
Follow and reblog
FOLLOW AND REBLOG
FOLLOW AND REBLOG
FOLLOW AND REBLOG
FOLLOW AND REBLOG
Make sure you follow all your fave artists before December, 17th, so you can keep track of them, and you can visit their blog directly, if you don’t see them in the search or in the dashboard. And reblog their art, EVER. It could be the only way to save them from the oblivion. Lurkers, readers, writers can be safe, for now, but our artist comrades are under attack. This is the time to show that a fandom is truly a community, giving them all the support we can.
As a form of protest, and since I believe that Tumblr will try to shadowban this post, I have decided that I will punish it every day. Deal with it, @staff :)
“Not safe for work content will be taken off starting Dec 17″
“Also Safe for work content will be removed”
If Tumblr is so desperate to kill itself just shut down the servers
Well, this is worrying.
It’s not surprising but seeing more people getting hit with a shadowban makes me wonder where Tumblr is eventually heading towards. It’s like looking at a person very slowly walk towards a cliff, and no matter how much you yell at them, they just keep walking.
Still, let’s see where this is going.
Writers are as well!
There are cases of writers being shadowban with our own fandom! Along with other fandoms!
Tumblr is destroying their own website to the ground.
This is disgrace for all creators!
Spread the word!
Writers and artists are being hit by this ‘new and improved’ tumblr cycle.
Please have other links where your readers can find your work! Just in case, tumblr decides to shadowban you as well or worst delete your blog.
My blog got shadowbanned MONTHS ago, and I search all I could about the issue, even contacted staff multiple times over the course of weeks, ‘till I gave up and just… leave it.
I even made multiple posts about the issue, but we couldn’t figure out what was really happening. I was also one of the very first blogs with flagged content, when the announcement of what was gonna happen wasn’t even in sight.
TUMBLR’S PURGE IS NOT NEW, IT BEGAN MONTHS AGO.
There’s no way out of the shadow zone and yes, people finding you it’s now impossible. It IS hurting many, many blogs.
Protest to your various representatives about SESTA/FOSTA, as they are the base of the problem. Tumblr (and other sites) can’t do much of anything while being choked by these laws.
Protest to tumblr about the fact that their algorithm was made by a dumb rock and is flagging freaking everything. Protest about them not notifying blogs of flagged content and shadowbanning. Protest about them not banning nazi’s and such.
Direct your energies toward the right places, because there’s more than one party responsible for this nonsense. Tumblr CAN fix their algorithm and notify bloggers about flagged content. They CAN’T reverse the NSFW ban until SESTA/FOSTA are dealt with. This is a multi-faceted problem and needs to be treated as such.
If you’re looking for reasons to leave, I’d like to add these ten to your thinking.
You might not be personally interested in NSFW content in your fandom - but on December 17th Tumblr’s algorithm is going to take down a lot of SFW content in error. Many of those creators have moved on and aren’t around to requests that their posts be re-assessed. Older fandoms are about to lose a huge amount of material.
Do you want to stay on a website using slash-and-burn tactics against long-established user communities? Tumblr believe they can tell most of their userbase they aren’t welcome here, then expect a family-friendly utopia to rise from the ashes. They’re going to get a nasty shock.
The site is about to hemorrhage active users. You might not post NSFW content, you might not like NSFW content - but many of your followers do. They’ll follow where it goes.
There are clear signs that Tumblr has incredibly hazy standards of what will constitute adult content. You only need to read their big announcement to know this. (’Female representing nipples’? Nudity in art is fine, but not in fan art?)
You can bet your bottom dollar that no matter how ‘adult content’ will be judged, those standards will be applied far more harshly to LGBT content. Romantic kisses happen between heterosexual pairings; gay pairings commit sex acts.
And even if the loss of adult and LGBT content is fine by you, that’s load-bearing content. Without all that monthly activity, Tumblr is going to see a shocking fall in its traffic. How long before Verizon decide it’s not worth keeping Tumblr operational at all?
If you want to spend your time and effort in building a fandom, it makes more sense to direct it into helping establish a new community with long term prospects. Why waste your time trying to keep a dying giant alive?
Learning a new site might seem like an annoyance, but so are the bugs which have plagued Tumblr for months. Those glitches are going to get worse as the site collapses.
Nazis are still perfectly welcome here. When all the fandom blogs are gone, blogs spouting hate speech are going to be much more obvious. Tumblr was known as a haven for adult content; it’s about to become known as a haven for racist content.
If Tumblr bans adult content and then collapses shortly afterwards from a mass exodus of users, other social media sites will think twice before doing this in future.
TLDR: as Tumblr experiences a nose-dive in activity, other sites will see a sudden blooming - and you can be a part of that. You can contribute to something good and growing. Some of those communities, especially in smaller fandoms, could really use your help in laying down solid foundations.
They’ll appreciate your support far more than Verizon ever will.
We’re honestly long overdue for a social media shakeup. The handful of big name, billion dollar social media monopolies we’ve all been using over the past decade have let us be too complacent and stagnant, and we’ve gotten too used to adapting our internet activities to the whims of billionaires and advertisers. This is an opportunity to start fresh someplace smaller and, hopefully, less beholden to the interests of venture capitalists. New platforms can mean innovation and growth, both personally and as communities.
I’m personally rooting for Pillowfort and Dreamwidth, which are both built on the premise that they should serve the needs of their users rather than advertisers. Yes, this means both sites have/will have paid premium tiers, but it be like that for indie developers who need to make a living: they have to be able to get the money to live on somehow, so they can either get day jobs and let their site be something they work on in their spare time (a terrible idea for a social media site that needs constant attention, maintenance, and bandwidth), or they can let their passion project be their source of income. I don’t think it’s asking much for them to say, “Everyone can use this site for free and without advertisements, but people willing to help us eat and not lose our houses while we provide this platform can have some bonuses and perks as thanks.” They’re not trying to hoard weath through their sites, they’re just trying to survive, and they choose to do it in a way that protects their users from the kinds of big companies that want us purged from tumblr in the first place.
(Yes, currently everyone has to pay to use Pillowfort, but it’s a one-time fee of $5 to access their closed beta, and it’s mainly to help them control traffic and pay their development team until they can implement the tiered account model. Once that’s up and running, they’ll be opening up free accounts, and in the meantime there are a lot of us playing account fairy and buying up invites to give to people who can’t afford the $5 fee right now. Ask and ye shall receive! Or head over to Dreamwidth if you want to be someplace that’s already established, less buggy, and free (but a little less feature-rich)
All of these posts link back to original posts of other blogs, I mostly made this for myself but decided to make it shareable, please respect the following:
If you click through to ANY of these posts, even if you don’t use them, reblog them individually if you’re going to like/reblog this post.
In response to the NSFW ban being enacted by Tumblr Staff, on December 17th 2018 I propose that we all log off of our Tumblr accounts for 24 hours.
The lack of respect and communication between staff and users is stark. Users have been begging staff to delete the porn bot outbreak, which has plagued the website for well over a year. The porn bots oftentimes send people asks and messages, trying to get them to go to a website full of viruses. They also spam advertisements on others posts.
Users have also begged that Tumblr ban neo-nazis, child porn, and pedophiles, all which run rampant on the site. The site/app got so bad that it was taken off the app store.
However, instead of answering the users, Tumblr has instead taken the liberty to ban all NSFW content, regardless of age. But users have already run into issues of their SFW content being marked as sensitive and being flagged as NSFW, not allowing them to share their work.
Not only does this discriminate again content creators, but it also discriminates against sex workers. Disgustingly, the ban will be enacted on December 17 which is also International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.
This ban is disgusting, and while I (and plenty of others) welcome porn bots and child porn being banned, the Tumblr filtration system is broken. It tags artistic work’s nipples as NSFW (when it is art), it tags SFW art as NSFW (when it is not), and does not stop the porn bots, neo-nazis and dozens of other issues.
This ban is discriminatory. This ban is ineffective. This ban is unacceptable.
To protest, log off of your Tumblr account for the entirety of December 17th. Log off at 12 am EST or 9PM PST and stay off for 24 hours. Don’t post. Don’t log on. Don’t even visit the website. Don’t give them that sweet ad revenue.
Tumblr’s stock has already taken a hard hit. Let’s make it tank. Maybe then they will listen to the users.
If you’re wanting to show your displeasure, don’t just tag staff or support. Take a page out of other consumer revolts and make sure your displeasure is known.
Don’t be an idiot. Do not threaten, harass or otherwise make this personal. Contact these companies, make your displeasure known, alert them that you are a customer and you will be leaving their brand across all boards unless they reverse their decision.
Be clear, be concise, be polite, but make your displeasure known.
this post will be updated as I find more websites to add! please check with the original before reblogging to see if there’s an updated version, and message me with more suggestions if you have them!!
for general use
myspace.com - yes, it still exists, i’m just as surprised as you
soup.io - very similar to tumblr, plus it can import your tumblr blog
twitter.com - allows posting both text and photos in sets, allows retweets
livejournal.com - still an option, but questionably safe for fandom
wordpress.com - old and well-established, often considered the default
geared towards artists and photographers
deviantart.com - huge community, allows posting art + sorting into folders
furaffinity.net - similar to DA but for furries, easy to display commish info
instagram.com - photo and video posts, excellent tag search
piczel.tv - allows both streaming and posting art / photosets to a gallery
pixiv.net - huge anime art community, allows livestreaming
paid platforms
patreon.com - subscription-based access to many diff types of content
pillowfort.io - still in beta, but should function almost identically to tumblr
typepad.com - similar to wordpress but with reblogging and a dash
ways to save your current tumblr posts
use the wayback machine! you do have to archive each page of your blog individually but once you do all the content, including media, will be saved exactly as it was at the moment you archived it.
wordpress and soup both allow you to directly import whole tumblr blogs, and if i recall correctly it’s something both dreamwidth and pillowfort have said they are working on.
if you have some knowledge of computers you can try this github solution which uses a python script to download your whole blog to your computer.
even if you don’t know anything about programming or the command line
they give a very good beginners tutorial on how to use it so you should still give it a shot!
Sounds drastic. Especially for content creators who may still need Tumblr for commissions while they find an alternative.
If you can swing it, here’s why:
I suspect that the December 17th deadline is so that Verizon/Yahoo can clean house and make Tumblr appealing to investors. This is a Q4/Q1 fire sale kind of thing. It makes a certain amount of business sense to make this change. Human-lead content curation (e.g. separating the CP from the legit) is expensive and time-consuming. I doubt they have the money for it. They already sold off Flickr. As a long-time Flickr pro user, I’m not pleased by the change and increase in pro account price, but I get it.
Investors are looking for a user base. User base is a prime attraction for investment or buy-out for a social media platform or application (I speak from experience as a co-founder of Rhinobird.tv).
Every account that is cancelled will be one less account in Tumblr’s user base for their pitch. I assume that there are millions of accounts with some percentage simply being abandoned accounts that haven’t been used in years. So cancelling one’s account on the way out the door won’t really matter unless the number of cancelled accounts reaches several hundred thousand at least.
If you decide to leave and cancel, then I also recommend sending a polite message to Tumblr staff, or tweet to the account about why you are leaving.
Finally, using Twitter to voice your concerns and thoughts about this issue will increase its visibility. They ain’t gonna like that. Media outlets that cater to tech entrepreneurs, and Silicon Valley types are going to be all over this.
I never ask for reblogs, but I will this one time.
