I just wanted to leave a quick thought on the coming End of All Things Not Pure around here. I’d tell you exactly what I thought, but that’s too many curse words for one post. Instead, I’ll tell you why Tumblr isn’t just deleting our blogs outright.
Services like Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, and others run on user counts. That’s the only number that matters. That’s why Instagram got bought for $1 billion. It’s why any time Twitter reports a drop in active users that the stock price craters. Users are the lifeblood of social media services. Active user accounts equal eyeballs on ads. Ad viewers make investors happy.
So, Tumblr needs to fix their problems without reducing the number of users they have on the site. If 25% (or way more) users disappeared on December 17th, the owners and investors would lose their minds. So, instead of deleting your account, they’re keeping it around. Like a ghost. And they’ll continue to count you as an active user for the purposes of convincing their investors that this isn’t a dead platform since the Porn Purge.
What does this mean? Well, if you really, really want to hurt them, you have to delete your account. It sucks. It’s wrong. It closes off a part of who we are. But, alas, an inactive account helps Tumblr. A deleted account sends a message. A reduction in active users shows the Powers That Be that this was a mistake and they’re going to feel it.
Personally, I’m not deleting my account just yet. But I reserve the right to do so once I figure out exactly how bad it’s going to be. The last 8 hours have shown that the automated algorithms have no idea how to properly flag everything. But two weeks is a lot of time to train a program what porn looks like. I’m not hopeful but we’ll see what happens.
Short version – If you really want to hurt the service that hurt you, delete your account and send a message. Otherwise, hang on for the mildest ride you can imagine.
A wise perspective from @loosenthetie
I like roller coaster rides. *Straps in, pulls the shoulder and lap bar in place, sits back and waits for the “fun” to happen.
“There’s been enough shots across the bow & friendly fire, to suggest this censorship direction is heading into hazardous territory.
It took years of uphill effort to get to this point, of a just few hundred followers. I thank you.
December 17 is just a beginning phase of global censorship trends. Posts on history & tyranny will have less reach. Censor bots unmasking & purging the internet at globalist behest, will themselves become unplugged as blockchain solutions eclipse their tech dominions.”
As if on queue, my fairwell post was immediately flagged as explicit. I’ve reposted it here.
Don’t punish the people that made you popular since the beginning. Return to the Wild West model.
Hire some competent coders for once. Pay them well.
Set up a better separation of Adult and Kid sections. You want Tumblr to be safe and inviting to kids and adult children. Fine. Give them a corner of Tumblr with a ball pit.
We didn’t come here for your vision of a more positive Tumblr. We came here to escape Twitter and Facebook. Stop trying to be like the sites everyone hates.
President Trump is your President if you are a citizen of the United States of America. Deal with it.
Stop pushing innovations no asked for in the first place.
Stop being Google with shitty algorithms.
Just be honest with yourself. There is no wider audience. You are either stuck with us deviant bastards. Or you can have the bots keep you company. Marvel is going to be dead after the movies die out because they are playing identity politics with their comic books.
CultML 