Today, Tumblr’s owner, Verizon Media, announced that Automattic plans to acquire Tumblr. Automattic is the technology company behind products such as WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, and Simplenote—products that help connect creators, businesses, and publishers to communities around the world.
We couldn’t be more excited to be joining a team that has a similar mission. Many of you know WordPress.com, Automattic’s flagship product. WordPress.com and Tumblr were both early pioneers among blogging platforms.
Automattic shares our vision to build passionate communities around shared interests and to democratize publishing so that anyone with a story can tell it, especially when they come from under-heard voices and marginalized communities.
We look forward to continuing to create products that empower your self-expression and sense of community and that build a better, more inclusive internet.
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.
To keep Tumblr the constructive, empowering place it should be
It was a little more than 10 years ago that we introduced the humble reblog, not knowing how much it would change the growing Tumblr community. The ability to take one person’s idea, build on it, and share it as something new transformed Tumblr from a simple blogging site into a place where people were talking, exploring, learning, and growing through reblog chains.
We’ve been thinking about that a lot recently—the kind of place we want Tumblr to be, and our responsibility to you here and out in the world.
At its core, Tumblr is a place to express yourself and connect with others who share your interests. Over time a knot of diverse, kinetic, passionate communities sprang up. You can jump from things you love into things you didn’t even know existed. And it’s on all of us to create a safe, constructive, and empowering environment where you can continue to do that.
Our Community Guidelines need to reflect the reality of the internet and social media today and acknowledge that the things people post and share online influence the way others think and behave.
The following updates will go into effect on September 10, 2018 and can reviewed here.
We won’t tolerate hate speech
We believe in a free and open internet but we can’t ignore that the internet is being exploited by hate groups to organize, recruit, and radicalize with horrifying efficiency. Updating our Community Guidelines and internal procedures is necessary to address a very real threat to members of the Tumblr community.
When it comes to hate speech, we’re redrawing the line between what’s uncomfortable and what’s unacceptable, and have struck 41 words of gray area from this section in the Community Guidelines. It now reads:
Hate Speech: Don’t encourage violence or hatred. Don’t post content for the purpose of promoting or inciting the hatred of, or dehumanizing, individuals or groups based on race, ethnic or national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, disability or disease. If you encounter content that violates our hate speech policies, please report it.
[DELETED: If you encounter negative speech that doesn’t rise to the level of violence or threats of violence, we encourage you to dismantle negative speech through argument rather than censorship. That said, if you encounter anything especially heinous, tell us about it.]
Keep in mind that a post might be mean, tasteless, or offensive without necessarily encouraging violence or hatred. In cases like that, you can always block the person who made the post—or, if you’re up for it, you can express your concerns to them directly, or use Tumblr to speak up, challenge ideas, raise awareness or generate discussion and debate.
While the deleted language was well-intentioned (and we still need your help reporting hate speech) a post shouldn’t have to be “especially heinous” to merit reporting.
We’re also banning the glorification of violence and its perpetrators
Not all violence is motivated by racial or ethnic hatred, but the glorification of mass murders like Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Parkland could inspire copycat violence. With that in mind, we’re revising the Community Guidelines on violent content by adding new language to specifically ban the glorification of violent acts or the perpetrators of those acts:
Violent Content and Threats, Gore, Mutilation: Don’t post content that includes violent threats toward individuals or groups—this includes threats of theft, property damage, or financial harm. Don’t post violent content or gore just to be shocking. Don’t showcase the mutilation or torture of human beings, animals (including bestiality), or their remains. Don’t post content that encourages or incites violence, or glorifies acts of violence or the perpetrators.
Lastly, we’re eliminating any ambiguity in our zero-tolerance policy on non-consensual sexual images
We’re adding a very simple statement (in bold below) to our existing policy on harassment to remove any uncertainty:
Harassment. Don’t engage in targeted abuse or harassment. Don’t engage in the unwanted sexualization or sexual harassment of others.
Posting sexually explicit photos of people without their consent was never allowed on Tumblr, but with the invention of deepfakes and the proliferation of non-consensual creepshots, we are updating our Community Guidelines to more clearly address new technologies that can be used to humiliate and threaten other people.
So what can you expect going forward?
The new Community Guidelines will go into effect on September 10, 2018. After that, if we determine a post or blog is promoting hatred, glorifying violence, or is engaging in the unwanted sexualization of another person, it will be taken down. This includes (for example) posting Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, or anti-LGBTQ+ content to promote or incite violence or hatred; using symbols of hate movements to intimidate or harass others; and the glorification of mass murderers.
Of course, context is everything. Posts and blogs that generate open, constructive debate are always welcome here. A heated conversation about race or gender identity in media is not hate speech, nor is a factual, educational history of Jim Crow.
An overwhelming amount of care and nuance is needed to evaluate reports fairly and accurately, so we’ve increased the size of our team to review the reports we receive.
What should you do if you see content that violates the CGs?
Report it. We’ve added hate speech reporting to the mobile apps. Just tap the airplane icon on any post to open this menu 👇 — then tap Report (flag button) > Something else > Hate speech.
One last note
We are fierce defenders of free expression. We want Tumblr to be a place where people come to be themselves and engage diverse points of view through constructive dialogue. The lines we’re drawing today around hate speech, violence, and non-consensual sexual content are designed to protect that vision.
We’ll continue to review and revise our Community Guidelines to make sure they remain an accurate reflection of our community and its values. And as part of our commitment to transparency, we’ll always make sure previous versions are available on our public GitHub repo.
You’re going to have opinions on these changes and what more we can do. We encourage you to share your thoughts (especially constructive feedback) in the notes. And if you feel that Tumblr is no longer for you, there’s a whole world of internet out there.
Some time ago we took a long, hard look at how we stacked up to the recommendations outlined in the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium. This is the initiative that sets standards for accessibility for people who may need assistance using the internet. It outlines steps to take and tools to use to create as seamless of an experience online as possible, whether you have auditory, visual, or neurological disabilities, are using a limited device, are on a slow connection with limited bandwidth, or…well, a whole bunch of other reasons.
The result of that long, hard look? Not great. We needed to make sure Tumblr was accessible to anyone who wants to use it.
Over the past few weeks we’ve been making changes to do just that. Our inaccessible menus are more accessible, we fixed our poorly described elements, and increased overall readability. You can read more about all that in our most recent @javascriptpost about the mobile web.
Part of making Tumblr more accessible involved upping the color contrast in our UI, most notably on the dashboard and everywhere else that familiar blue touches. The light grays and muted blues had a contrast ratio of 2.02:1. What does that mean? Bad. It was bad, and we needed to do better by people with visual impairments.
Enter your new dashboard:
It looks…cleaner, doesn’t it? Like someone dusted off the poorly accessible bits. The blue is darker, the grays are lighter, all the buttons and icons are brighter with our new brand colors, and it has a contrast ratio of 7.87:1 What does that mean? Good! Very good.
The switch to your brand new, higher contrast, less dusty dashboard has been slowly rolling out this week. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’ll get it sometime in the next few days.
A note: We know that this color change on the dashboard negatively impacts the beautiful bluespace art so many of you have created over the past few years. Seeing these older posts lose the utilization of the dashboard—something that made them so special and unique to just Tumblr—is certainly not a great feeling. There’s no way around that. We hope, however, that this change only means newer, more bluespace art will be created, and that this time around it will be easier for everyone to experience.
Goodbye, #36465D. You’ve treated many of us well, but #001935 will treat every single one of us even better.
There’s some important information we want to share with you about a recent security bug we’ve resolved. Most importantly, there is no action required of you. We’ve resolved the issue, and have no evidence of this security bug being abused. We still, however, think it’s the right thing to do to let you know.
A few weeks ago, we received a report of a bug involving user account information from a security researcher participating in our bug bounty program, which invites some of the best researchers in the world to test the security of our systems. The bug was resolved by our engineering team within 12 hours of being reported to us, and we’ve taken steps to enhance product monitoring and analysis that will help prevent and detect this type of bug in the future.
The bug was in the “Recommended Blogs” feature on the desktop version of Tumblr. “Recommended Blogs” module displays a short, rotating list of blogs of other users that may be of interest, and appears only for logged-in users. If a blog appeared in the module, it was possible, using debugging software in a certain way, to view certain account information associated with the blog.
We’ve also thoroughly investigated any way in which our community could have been affected. We found no evidence that this bug was abused, and there is nothing to suggest that unprotected account information was accessed.
We’re not able to determine which specific accounts could have been affected by this bug, but our analysis has shown that the bug was rarely present. When it was, it was possible that certain user account information could have been viewed. This included email address, protected (hashed and salted) password of the Tumblr account, self-reported location (a no longer available feature), previously used email addresses, last login IP address, and the name of the blog associated with the account.
It’s our mission to provide a safe space for people to express themselves freely and form communities around things they love. We feel that this bug could have affected that experience. We want to be transparent with you about it. In our view, it’s simply the right thing to do.
This past March, we made you aware of steps we took to take down an Internet Research Agency (IRA) disinformation campaign operating on Tumblr in the lead up to the 2016 U.S. elections. The IRA is a Russian state-sponsored group that attempts to influence global political sentiment using Tumblr and other platforms. Our efforts helped indict 13 people who worked for the IRA.
We said at the time that we would be on the lookout for additional evidence of fake Tumblr accounts affiliated with state-sponsored disinformation campaigns.
In the days leading up to November 6, 2018, we were provided information by law enforcement authorities, including a list of Tumblr accounts allegedly tied to the IRA. We immediately initiated our own independent investigation and we have now identified a total of 112 accounts that we believe to be IRA-affiliated. These accounts appear to be relics of past IRA activity. None of the blogs contained any content related to the 2018 midterm elections, and all of the blogs were dormant since the 2016 election cycle.
Although these blogs posed no threat to the 2018 elections, consistent with our promise in March, we:
Immediately terminated these accounts and removed the original posts;
Left reblogs of posts from these accounts in place for transparency purposes;
Are notifying you if you liked, reblogged, replied to, or followed one of the accounts; and
Have added the accounts to our public record of usernames linked to state-sponsored disinformation campaigns.
U.S. intelligence officials and law enforcement continue to warn that we will see attempts at foreign influence in the future. We remain committed to closely monitoring for signs of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and will continue to review any information made available to us.
There are also things you can do to help stop the spread of disinformation and propaganda.
Be aware that people want to manipulate the conversation. Knowing that disinformation and propaganda accounts are out there makes it harder for them to operate. The News Literacy Project has this handy checklist (hosted by John Jay College of Criminal Justice ) for spotting their tricks.
Be skeptical of things you read. Disinformation campaigns work because they know people don’t fact check. Look for reliable sources, and double-check that the source really says the same thing as the post. You can also check Snopes and Politifact. Both are award-winning resources and usually have the latest viral claim fact-checked on the front page.
Correct the record. When you see people spreading misinformation—even unintentionally—politely say something in a reblog or reply. If it’s your friend, send them a message to let them know.
Most importantly, we’ll continue to keep our promise to be transparent with you.
We’ve heard from a bunch of you that Safe Mode was filtering posts from the LGBTQ+ community even though they were completely innocuous and totally safe-for-work. Please know that was never our intention, and we appreciate you letting us know so quickly—and forcefully! We’re deeply sorry. Tumblr will always be a place where everyone is welcome and protected, so we want to explain what happened.
The major issue was some Tumblrs had marked themselves as Adult/NSFW (now Explicit) as a courtesy to their fellow users, and their perfectly safe posts were getting marked sensitive unintentionally. That should never have happened. We’re sorry.
We’re making some changes that should improve things:
Changes to self-marked blogs
What was happening: Because we consider Explicit blogs to be predominantly sensitive content, we were automatically marking all their posts as sensitive. That was too broad.
What we fixed: Now each post is classified individually. As they should be.
Changes to reblog chains
What was happening: If an Explicit Tumblr reblogged a safe post, we were marking that reblog as sensitive. This was even happening to text posts. Which is silly.
What we fixed: We changed the logic so that if the OP is safe, all its reblogs will also be safe.
Changes to photosets
What’s (still) happening: When you make a photo post, a computer algorithm classifies the image as safe or sensitive. It’s a machine so it’s not perfect. And the chances go up with photosets because there are multiple images. But out of an abundance of caution we keep posts marked sensitive until the OP requests a human review (by tapping the appeal button on their posts).
What we’re working on: We plan to have photosets analyzed as a whole group, rather than as individual images. That should reduce the number of mistakes the machine makes.
Safe Mode is supposed to make sure people aren’t surprised by things they may not want to see—specifically, nudity. It might take some time to get it perfect, but we’re committed to getting there with your help. Our algorithms will keep getting smarter as you give feedback on misclassified posts, and as you share your concerns and suggestions.
A couple of weeks ago we announced an update to our Community Guidelines regarding adult content, and we’ve received a lot of questions and feedback from you. First and foremost, we are sorry that this has not been an easy transition and we know we can do a better job of explaining what we’re doing. We knew this wasn’t going to be an easy task and we appreciate your patience as we work through the challenges and limitations of correctly flagging tens of billions of GIFs, videos, and photos.
Today, December 17th, our policy begins to take effect. This means that we will start hiding – not deleting – posts that contain GIFs, videos, and photos from public view that are in violation of our policy. Again, this is a complex problem, and over the coming weeks we will gradually, and carefully, flag more adult content. (Yes, we will still make mistakes, but hopefully fewer and fewer.)
More importantly, we want to clarify the things that you, as a community, have asked about the most.
Tumblr will always be a place to explore your identity. Tumblr has always been home to marginalized communities and always will be. We fully recognize Tumblr’s special obligation to these communities and are committed to ensuring that our new policy on adult content does not silence the vital conversations that take place here every day. LGBTQ+ conversations, exploration of sexuality and gender, efforts to document the lives and challenges of those in the sex worker industry, and posts with pictures, videos, and GIFs of gender-confirmation surgery are all examples of content that is not only permitted on Tumblr but actively encouraged.
We also want to reiterate some important information from our Support post:
Your content will not be deleted. If your post(s) are flagged under the new policy, they will be hidden from public view and will only be visible to you. You can appeal these flags if you feel your content was erroneously marked as adult content. Upcoming feature changes will also make appeals more manageable for those of you with multiple flagged posts. Your blog won’t be deleted if you’ve posted adult content in the past, and there is nothing you need to do if you have interacted with adult content up until now–it will just be flagged and not publicly viewable. Don’t forget too that you can download your content. It’s yours after all, and we don’t take that lightly.
What is still permitted? We’ve heard a lot of concern about what the policy does not permit, but we want to make sure that you also know what is still permitted:
Written content such as erotica, nudity related to political or newsworthy speech, and nudity found in art, specifically sculptures and illustrations, is also stuff that can be freely posted on Tumblr. Although, photorealistic imagery or photography – images, videos, or GIFs – with real humans that include exposed genitals or female-presenting (yeah, we know you hate this term) nipples or depict sex acts is not allowed per our guidelines.
Examples of exceptions that are still permitted but that you may need to appeal if they are misclassified are: exposed female-presenting nipples in connection with breastfeeding, birth or after-birth moments, and health-related situations, such as post-mastectomy or gender confirmation surgery.
The automated tools will improve. Having a post mistakenly flagged as adult totally sucks; we understand and agree that there have been too many wrongfully flagged posts since we announced the policy change. With tens of billions of GIFs, videos, and photos to review and millions of new posts every day, we really need your help to get it right.
The more you help by reporting content that’s not permitted and by appealing content that you believe was flagged incorrectly, the better our automated tools will get at classifying your posts correctly. The more content these tools review, the more they will learn the difference between what’s permitted and what’s not. Most importantly, your content won’t be deleted if erroneously flagged and all appeals will be sent to a real, live human who can make the appropriate call.
We love Tumblr and the communities that call Tumblr home. You are Tumblr. This place has always been a reflection of the voices and communities that thrive here. As you’ve always done, help us continue to shape Tumblr into the community you want it to be.
We’re all grappling with the influence that state-sponsored disinformation campaigns can have on our political conversations—and how wide-spread that interference turned out to be. So please take a moment to read this, think about it, and talk about it.
Last fall, we uncovered 84 Tumblr accounts linked to the Russian government through the Internet Research Agency, or IRA. These accounts were being used as part of a disinformation campaign leading up to the 2016 U.S. election. After uncovering the activity, we notified law enforcement, terminated the accounts, and deleted their original posts. Behind the scenes, we worked with the Department of Justice, and the information we provided helped indict 13 people who worked for the IRA.
Now that the investigations are done, we want to let you know how we’re going to help protect Tumblr in the future and what you can do to help.
Here’s what we know about these accounts
The IRA employs more than 1,000 people who engage in electronic disinformation and propaganda campaigns around the world using phony social media accounts. Their goal is to sow division and discontent in the countries they target. What makes them so difficult to spot is that they’re not spambots. They’re real people who get trained and paid to spread propaganda.
As far as we can tell, the IRA-linked accounts were only focused on spreading disinformation in the U.S., and they only posted organic content. We didn’t find any indication that they ran ads.
Remember, the IRA and other state-sponsored disinformation campaigns play off our zero-sum politics. They want to drive a wedge between us so that we spend our time fighting with each other instead of building towards the future. We’ll be watching for signs of future activity, but the best defense is knowing how they operate and how to judge the content you see.
What we’re doing in response to the interference
First, we’ll be emailing anyone who liked, reblogged, replied to, or followed an IRA-linked account with the list of usernames they engaged with.
Second, we’re going to start keeping a public record of usernames we’ve linked to the IRA or other state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. We’re committed to transparency and want you to know everything that we know.
We’ve decided to leave up any reblog chains that might be on your Tumblrs—you can choose to leave them or delete them. We’re letting you decide because the reblog chains contain posts created by real Tumblr users, often challenging or debunking the false and incendiary claims in the IRA-linked original post. Removing those authentic posts without your consent would encroach on your free speech—and there have been enough disruptions to our conversations as it is.
What we’re doing to stop future disinformation campaigns
You’ve probably read that U.S. intelligence officials expect foreign agents to try similar propaganda campaigns in the future. We’ll be monitoring Tumblr for signs of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, and if we see anything we will…
Terminate the accounts and remove their original posts.
Notify you if we determine that you’ve liked, reblogged, replied to, or followed a propaganda account.
There are also things you can do to help stop the spread of disinformation and propaganda.
Be aware that people want to manipulate the conversation. Knowing that disinformation and propaganda accounts are out there makes it harder for them to operate. The News Literacy Project has this handy checklist for spotting their tricks.
Be skeptical of things you read. Disinformation campaigns work because they know people don’t fact check. Look for reliable sources, and double-check that the source really says the same thing as the post. You can also check Snopes and Politifact. Both are award-winning resources and usually have the latest viral claim fact checked on the front page.
Correct the record. When you see people spreading misinformation—even unintentionally—politely say something in a reblog or reply. If it’s your friend, send them a message to let them know.
One last note: Please vote.
Transparency won’t mean a thing if we don’t participate in the process. Whatever your political stance, voting ensures a government that represents your interests. For our U.S. users: You can register online or by mail, and many states are holding primaries right now.
Well, wow. Who knew one thing moving in front of the other could elicit in us such childlike wonder? Turns out, pretty much everyone, actually. The untimely darkness! The crescent dapples! That bright corona! You’ve all enjoyed them immensely. Here’s an eclipse collection for the annals.
