Chronic Procrastination

So some fanartist drew a “sexy” (read: booby) version of a (cartoon) character who is traditionally very non-sexualised. Fans of the character got mad about it because it’s kind of groundbreaking how that character is written and portrayed and this art totally ignores the entire point of the character. They demanded the art be deleted. In response to that other people said, well what the fanartist did may be distateful but they have every right to draw what they’re into. The two sides fight for days and each starts a harassment campaign and even report their “opponents’” accounts.

So far so typical. But things eventually come to a head and they decide that this will be settled by votes - not through a poll. Through donations to a children’s education charity via each side’s portal. Whoever can get the highest amount of donation wins.

To continue our commitment to user safety and to comply with local laws, we will start using age groups to determine access to certain experiences.

People in Brazil or in the UK, who are 18 or older, will soon need to verify their age to change content label settings and view mature-labeled content. Until then, the settings will be locked to hide.

As a reminder, verification is handled by our age-assurance partner, k-ID. Tumblr won't have access to the information you submit, just the final age-verification result. Documents are deleted after confirmation, and facial scan data never leaves your device. 

The sheer number of innocent posts that get wrongly marked as mature (including posts with deactivated/deleted OPs who obviously can’t appeal, so they’re just permanently stuck with that label) mean you will be cutting off these users from huge swaths of the site for no actual reason.

Reviews to get the label removed from SFW posts take forever and don’t even reliably work. Hell, the option to request a review straight up broke on one of the posts on this blog. (I’ve tried repeatedly to submit an appeal but it keeps giving me an error message, and sometimes the option to appeal is missing entirely.)

Speaking of reviews, if you implement age verification measures, how are people in Brazil and the UK with incorrectly flagged posts supposed to appeal if they’re going to be prevented from seeing them?

And I can’t speak for Brazil, but the relevant UK legislation is around two and a half years old and fines for breaches started almost one year ago, so why are you choosing to do this now?

Why are you so determined to kill your site?

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