A World in Progress

happy 20 year anniversary of Neil banging out the tunes!

though every rat is special, it's a wonderful and unusual thing for their accomplishments to be remembered and cherished by so many people so many years later. we're all so fortunate to know about the rat who banged out the tunes!

thank you to all the people who sent me reference photos of their beloved rats for this piece!!! credits under the cut!

As important as it was to contact Tumblr when they made that asinine, fucked up change, now that they've reversed it, you have a chance to say thanks for reversing it.

I know that you're probably still riding the high (negative) from the stress of going through yesterday's changes, and worrying about the fate of your community, and how badly the change would have affected creators. We banded together, and we let the staff know that we didn't like what they were doing, and you know what? They listened. That's part of why we're here on Tumblr and not other places that would have just shoved that down our throats regardless of the hundreds of thousands of complaints. Yeah, they fucked up. Big time. But they also backed off, and it's important to speak on that front as well if you want them to do it again later.

So, even though you may still be mad that they did it at all, take a moment and a breath, and click here. Select feedback if it isn't already selected. And just say "Hey, thanks for listening to your users, and for rolling back the change. I like my community here, and I like that you listened to us when we asked you not to do something we didn't like." It doesn't need to be elaborate. But if we want them to listen to us, making it worth listening to us is a step in the process.

Which also means that if you added a negative review somewhere due to this update, consider retracting or editing it to address the back track on the update. If you were a premium user and you cancelled in order to speak with your money to object to the change, consider speaking again now that you've been listened to.

@staff

For years, the total note count on a post served as a universal metric of a piece of content's impact. Whether a user liked the original post or a reblog fifteen branches deep, that engagement flowed back to the source. This ensured that the original artist, writer, or editor received the full credit for the viral success of their work.

Under this new system, engagement is trapped within the specific reblog a user happens to see on their dashboard. If a massive, high-traffic blog reblogs a piece of art from a small creator, every like and reblog that occurs through that larger account stays with them. The original creator is left with a stagnant note count on their own dashboard while their work generates thousands of interactions for someone else.

Erasure of Creator Visibility

Instead of seeing one post with 10,000 notes, a creator may now have to hunt through dozens of different reblog chains to find where the conversation is actually happening.

If the notes no longer flow back to the original post, the creator loses the ability to see who is enjoying their work, what the tags say, and how the community is responding.

On a platform where engagement often dictates visibility, splitting that engagement into tiny, unlinked fractions makes it significantly harder for original works to gain momentum compared to the high-reach blogs that reblog them.

Incentivizing the "Big Blog" Monopoly

This system rewards accounts that have already established a large following at the direct expense of the smaller accounts that actually produce the content. It transforms reblogging from a method of sharing into a method of acquisition.

When a reblog functions as its own independent post with its own note count, the incentive to click through to the original source disappears. The platform is transitioning from a collaborative ecosystem into a standard social media feed where the person who posts the content last—not the person who made it—reaps the rewards.

Impact on Collaborative Conversations

Tumblr’s unique culture is built on the reblog chain: a chronological, evolving conversation. By allowing users to like or reblog "any part" of the chain as an independent entity, the platform is breaking the narrative thread.

If engagement is siloed into specific branches, the incentive to add to a conversation is replaced by an incentive to simply own a piece of the engagement. This change doesn't encourage conversation. It encourages the commodification of individual posts within a chain, making it harder for the original voice to ever be heard over the noise of the rebloggers.

The Disincentive to Create

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of this update is the psychological toll on the creative community. When the platform actively diverts credit and engagement away from the source, it destroys the motivation to share original work at all.

For many, the reward for posting is seeing how far their work travels. If that travel is now invisible or attributed to others, the labor of creating becomes thankless.

This system makes creators want to share nothing. If the platform is built to harvest a creator's effort for the benefit of curator blogs, the logical response is to stop providing the raw material. I am one leaning into this category. Without us creators, the curator blogs have nothing to curate.

🚨 You WILL Be Impacted 🚨

Every photo, every message, every file you send will be automatically scanned—without your consent or suspicion.

If you live in the EU*, contact your MEPs NOW and tell them to vote NO! Go here to learn more & FIGHT BACK!

https://fightchatcontrol.eu/

*especially if you live in Germany - they have not yet decided, and their opposition is crucial!

do not let up the pressure

Art by GreedyGulo / @greedygulo

Comics is a medium with a rich history of celebrated works across all genres, including the erotic. It is also a format that has been overwhelmingly censored and banned due to the strict control of the Comics Code Authority of the 1950s, which have only eased in the last few decades.  But recent years have seen an incredible increase in restrictive anti-erotica policies- Patreon, Gumroad, Stripe, Etsy, itch.io and more have all blamed “payment processing partners” for their new restrictive policies. While these are all US-based companies, their monopoly ultimately affects artists and non-english platforms around the world.

For those not in the know, Steam and Itch.io were recently hit by a recent wave of censorship, championed by the Australian group Collective Shout, but they are not the only entities at fault.

The video above is an excellent break down of this decades long battle against censorship across the internet. To help fight, please check out:

stop-paypros.neocities.org

"You are heartless, people are suffering".

Yes, people are. But those people do NOT have the time and recourse to spend all day sending thousands upon thousands of messages to total strangers, which has a very known low-return rate.

Those that do are scam centres.

Think of it like a call centre. Why are they profitable? If you spent ALL day trying to get clients for your business on the phone it would be fruitless, a waste of time.

But we have all had messages from call centres. Why? Economy of scale.

If you have 1 person, that is simply not a wide enough net for a return. 100, 1000, 10,000? Now we are getting somewhere.

It isn't about if people in Gaza have the internet, many do. But there are obviously better and more helpful ways for them to spend their time trying to get resources. There are lines for organisations and charities they can get in contact with that can help them far, far more.

"I do not believe they have the time, they need help NOW"

They do need help now, but you giving money is not any guarantee of help. Charities are not charging for food and medical help in Gaza, those are the organisations that need money to keep helping them. The most common use scenario, that I have seen, for Gazans wanting money is in order to get OUT of the area to safety. Which is, heartbreakingly, not something you should give to. Because those are RIFE with scammers and traffickers. Were, best case if you get grifted, you just lose all the money you have. Worst case is ending up in a contract that you have no way to get out of and no documentation.

When there is a natural disaster we do not start by giving people impacted some money, because it is not the most useful or helpful way to do things. We have to fund people giving rescue, giving food, giving medical supplies, the doctors without borders who go there to help.

These are charities that struggle for funding because people do not want to give to organisations because there are costs associated with running an organisation and WRONGLY insist that direct giving is better in a situation like this.

It isn't. These are strangers reaching out to strangers. It does not make sense for them to spend their time doing that, it does not make sense for you to spend your money doing that.

The only benefit it seems to have is making some people feel really good about themselves and calling it direct action. Which is not the goal.

"There are blogs that vet them though!"

And who are the vetters? What process do they use? Why has every scam blog that has messaged me ended up on one of the vet lists I have seen?

"Well...Some of them offer to FaceTime with you and prove they are Palestinian!"

I am once again begging you to ask who is more likely to have the time and resources for that: Someone who is in a precarious position in Gaza, or someone working in a scam centre?

Put aside the fact that, without religious garb, how would you TELL a Palestinian from an Israeli? From someone in the more central east? From Pakistan? From India? From Turkey? How do they verify they are Palestinian? How does that even make sense?

And, again, if they are sending out at least HUNDREDS of messages per day (a d that is a very conservative number) how on earth could they possibly have the time to verify themselves to even a percentage of the people who are asking? Is this something that is likely to happen?

Or

Is it more likely that this is a common scam strategy, because people are more likely to trust someone who OFFERS to validate themselves?

I had to turn off all asks at all because the scammers keep adapting. They are now sending out anonymous messages that just has a link to the bio so that they can't be reported and blocked as easily.

Why would someone want to send an ask to me? I have in my bio not to, my pinned post says not to, and my literal ask button says that I will report people as spammers if they do.

Despite having all those things, my flow of messages did not slow. Because they aren't a single real person. It is a tonne of people playing the numbers game.

"You just do not care about this as much as I do"

Why would a Nigerian prince send your grandmother an email asking to pay her money? There must be other, more logical solutions for his dilemma, right?

That is also the case for these scams. Just because they use a REAL WORLD tragedy as a front does not mean that it is not a scam. In fact, there have been other EXTREMELY direct situations in Gaza before and I have never EVER seen this many scammers.

Because it was not as well known before. The average person might have known "something" was going on over there, but you are absolutely kidding yourself if you think it has ever had this much social prominence.

That means there are more people caring than there were before. More people caring means more scammers looking to make money from this situation.

I have posted before, scam centres very often use human trafficking to get people to work on these scams. They exploit and manipulate to get people sending thousands and thousands of messages a day. A single account that says to be one man trying to find help for his child will actually be 2, 20, 30, 100 people all interacting in messages, depending how many responses they get.

Please do not mistake your naivety and refusal to give to charities that can actually make LARGE differences as you caring more. When you are told repeatedly that your actions are extremely likely to do more harm but you refuse to listen and just lash out at people I am going to assume you are either 1. Fairly self involved and feel more strongly about FEELING helpful rather than BEING helpful. Or 2. Some kind of bot account that is becoming extremely common on these sites just to create discourse. We are living on a dead internet.

"So, I just shouldn't do anything?"

Not at all, here are some charities I have given to or been recommended. Please, of course, do your own research. Giving is meant to be easy, but is has become less and less so. Please make sure you know and trust who you are giving.

Anera

World Kitchen

International Rescue

Red Crescent (like the Red Cross, but Crescent)

I'm sure there are many more. Please look into them. Every dollar you give to scammers is bad. Because it could go to organisations and people who need it, and it could be funding human trafficking. Do not let scammers exploit your kindness.

"But I know someone in Palestine personally, I have known them for years and I have given them money"

Then this is not about you. This is about cold message scammers. Make your own soup without beans.

care for gaza - focuses on providing food and essential supplies. donate here or here.

connecting humanity - securing internet access via donations of virtual sim cards (esims). if you can't afford a whole plan yourself, crips for esims is a communal pool that will use your donation to purchase and maintain esims

gaza soup kitchen - provides food, medical care, and classes for children. also has a gofundme

glia gaza medical support initiative - provides medical care through field clinics and tents at hospitals. donations can also be sent through their website.

ele elna elak - provides clean water, food, clothing, and shelter. they also have a gofundme

life for gaza - raising money for the gaza municipality to repair water and waste management infrastructure

taawon - partners with local civil organizations to provide food, water, medical care, shelter, and basic supplies

the sameer project - running various initiatives providing tents, medical care, and necessities. they have their own encampment project focused on sheltering families with children, sick and disabled members, or members in need of perinatal care

islamic relief worldwide's gaza emergency appeal - provides food, water, hygiene kits, medical supplies, and psychological support

baitulmaal - provides a variety of necessities, including food, water, shelter, and medical supplies

gaza mutual aid fund - distributes food, hygiene products, water, and other essential supplies, including financial support. run by @/el-shab-hussein's amazing friend Mona. updates can be found on her instagram.

hygiene kits for gaza - provides hygiene supplies including menstrual products, wipes, and toothbrushes/toothpaste

anera - provides a variety of necessities, including food, water, hygiene supplies, medicine, blankets and mattresses, and psychological care

palestine children's relief fund - provides supplies and support with a focus on children. also has an initiative for lebanon

dahnoun mutual aid - provides water, food, tents, baby supplies, financial support, and other necessities. updates can be found through their instagram

Only last year it was hailed as a conservation success story: the Iberian lynx, which had been close to extinction, had sprung back to life thanks to a two-decade-long effort to expand the population.

Now, however, that progress is at risk after several regional governments in Spain acceded to pressure from farmers and hunters to block the reintroduction of the species into the wild.

Claiming the wildcat preys on livestock, as well as rabbits and partridges, opponents of the lynx have made breakthroughs, threatening to undo efforts that helped its population grow to about 2,000 across Spain and Portugal.

Often the lynx was falling victim not to serious objections but to unrelated political bickering, according to Ramón Pérez de Ayala of the WWF. Often, it involves the far-right Vox party, which claims to champion the rights of farmers.

In Aragón, opposition to the lynx programme was led by the then agriculture minister, Ángel Samper, a member of Vox. Samper claimed the wildcats were attacking sheep. Pérez de Ayala, Spain’s leading expert on the lynx, says attacks on livestock are practically nonexistent.

Jorge Valero, the head of the Aragón government’s hunting and fishing department, also of Vox, opposed the reintroduction of the lynx, saying: “It’s wrong to bring them back just because they were here 20 or 100 years ago. It makes us look like Jurassic Park.”

Vox split from the Aragón government last summer amid claims that Valero and another minister were apologists for the former dictator Francisco Franco.

But it is not only there that Spain’s native wildcat is under pressure. Last month the Catalan government agreed to demands by the farmers’ association Revolta Pagesa (Peasants’ Revolt) to block the introduction of wolves, bears and lynx, despite a surfeit of rabbits in much of the region. Pérez de Ayala says rabbits make up 90% of the lynx’s diet.

The plan was to release lynx into the south-western areas of Noguera and Garrigues, where there has been an explosion in the rabbit population. However, the Catalan government has acceded to the farmers’ preferred option of culling the rabbits with aluminium phosphide.

Although the lynx has been welcomed in much of Castilla y León in Spain’s north-west, local authorities around Zamora and the Douro River are less enthusiastic.

“The hunters don’t want them, nor do the farmers,” said José Martín, the mayor of Almaraz de Duero, from the conservative People’s party. “They say they will attract more tourism but it’s not worth it for the impact it has on our way of life.”

Pérez de Ayala said the lynx was often being caught up in unrelated arguments. “Sometimes it’s because the local authority is trying to put pressure on the government for something that has nothing to do with the lynx or because of political infighting,” he said.

Much of the opposition comes from the hunting lobby, he added, echoing a post on X on Monday by Hugo Morán Fernández, Spain’s secretary of state for the environment. He said: “The problem arising from the extermination of certain species is that there will be no one left to blame for the decline of hunting or livestock farming.”

Twenty-five years ago the Iberian lynx (lynx pardinus) was close to extinction, having been classified, along with wolves, as vermin. After the efforts of a coalition including the EU and regional and national governments in Spain and Portugal, as well as wildlife NGOs and local people, its status was downgraded last year from “endangered” to “vulnerable”.

What the fuck?!