Two Drops of Stardust

Staff has officially posted an update regarding the reblog decoupling, and while they are reversing the change for now, we need to look closely at the language they are using. This is a classic example of corporate "double speak" designed to de-escalate a PR crisis while keeping the door open for the same harmful features later.

The Post: Reblog Update: We’re Reversing the Change

The Red Flag:

"We still believe there's a better version of how reblogs can work. One that gives every voice in a chain the credit it deserves. But we want to get there with you."

The Breakdown: When they say they want to give every voice the credit it deserves, they are still justifying the decoupling of notes. They are framing the destruction of the original creator's attribution as a feature for the rebloggers or the loss of community. Their goal hasn't changed. They just realized their current execution was a technical and social disaster.

They also mention working "directly with some of you." This often means selecting a small, curated group of "power users" who may not prioritize the accessibility or safety needs that we have been fighting for.

THE CURRENT CONSENSUS IS; we're keeping the blackouts as a “if you propose another fucked up thing we're going to do these” but we aren't doing any of them as of now.

PRIOR BLACKOUT INFORMATION IS NOW UNDER THE CUT. I WILL KEEP THIS PINNED FOR NOW. PLEASE GET PEOPLE TO CHECK THE ORIGINAL FOR THIS INFORMATION.

I AM NOW MUTING NOTIFICATIONS FOR THIS POST. if you would like answers on anything, SEND ME AN ASK

So we're all pissed at the new update as we should be and I've been seeing many people proposing blackouts, which is amazing! But all the dates are different and people might get confused at what's happening when, so I just want to organize every blackout (at least that I saw) in one place.

So far I saw six people with dates.

The earliest one, organized by @yourlocalfandomfriendo begins on March 18th and will last 48 hours.

This overlaps with a second proposed blackout by @veejiez for March 19th.

There is also one on the 20th proposed by @daysleftofsecondterm and another one on the same day from 6AM UTC to 6AM UTC on the 21st by @everythingwsnormalhere.

These three days are all very soon so not everyone may see them in time to participate, but if you are able to participate for any or all of these days, I highly encourage you do. Otherwise there are two more blackouts coming up:

The next one after these will be on March 24th as organized by @aroacesafeplaceforall who suggested doing 12 hours.

And the last one, which I personally have a lot of hope for as it's a major day for activity on Tumblr and a blackout then could be especially impactful: April 1st, as proposed by @darkwood-sleddog

There is also a discord set up by @yourlocalfandomfriendo and @aroacesafeplaceforall for anyone interested in joining in!

SO OVERALL, it may sound like a lot, but no one expects everyone to participate to every date here. But PLEASE try to participate in at least one or two of these, even if you feel it may not do much.

Typical strikes, the ones we hear about all the time, win by withholding their labour for consistent periods of time; that's the power people have at work because that's what's exploited.

For blackout strikes, we need to withhold our attention; the resource we own which is exploited through the selling of both advertisements and data.

My comparison of blackout strikes with regular strikes will be for a whole other post, but for the time being, just know that

withholding our attention is our digital bargaining weapon

Tumblr literally lost 63% of its monthly traffic from 2024 to 2025; they are not in a position to play around with those of us still here.

So PLEASE try participating. We cannot let every decent online space get enshittified with no care or consideration for the communities using those spaces.

Apparently, from what I hear people say, in the new Tumblr update, if someone reblogs your post and adds a comment of their own, that reblog is counted as a new post and it belongs to the reblogger. Not you. You, as the OP, do not get the notifications if someone else later reblogs from the person who reblogged your post with their own comment. You can’t see what comments people leave on the reblogs of the post you originally made unless they reblogged directly from you.

If this is actually true, it will just open doors for harassment. And also it takes the credits away from the OPs. Tumblr’s etiquette has always been “reblog don’t repost”. So this new update, if true, contradicts the whole core values of Tumblr as a community.

Respectfully, we don’t want this @staff @support @tumblr @changes please listen to your users.

The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve. 

Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.

If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.

Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.

EXTREMELY BAD HOLY FUCK.

But this. This changes the data architecture. This changes the SINGLE THING that makes tumblr the "... yes and" website. This KILLS THE COLLABORATIVE POSTING THAT MAKES THIS SITE DIFFERENT FROM ALL THE OTHER MEDIA PLATFORMS.

For my non-Canadian followers, please share this petition and hopefully this will further the reach to other Canadian users on this platform. It is abominable that any company in this country help or in any way facilitate the unconstitutional and dehumanising acts that ICE has done. In my city of Vancouver, we have been protesting and boycotting Hootsuite, a social media platform that has a $2M USD contract with DHS providing them with social media services from 2024 to 2029. Hootsuite claims they don't use tracking or surveillance with their tools, but the mere fact that they have chosen to work with the violent group in whatever social media capacity, despite previously *turning down* a contract with them back in 2020, is egregious.

Jim Pattison Group is a enormous conglomerate also based in Vancouver, owned and run by one man, Jim Pattison. Pattison previously considered selling an industrial building in Virginia to ICE for them to use as another "holding and processing facility," or more accurately, a goddamn concentration camp, but because of backlash he reversed that decision. Thank fucking god for that, but that does not mean he won't consider it again in the future. In Ontario, ICE ordered 20 armoured vehicles from a Brampton firm called Roshel to the tune of $7.3M USD. Canada should not be arming a violent group that has shown itself to be nothing more than a racist group of masked kidnappers and power-tripping thugs that has violated the rights of US citizens and violated numerous court orders.