#logoff2018

The Log Off Protest is officially OVER! 

But we’re not done yet! 

Wave 2 of the protest will pick up before the end of the year - this time with mass emails, tweets, and negative reviews of the app/website. There is no defined date yet, so make sure to follow this blog and the Twitter page ( @logoffprotest ) for updates.

Just Wave 1 on its own was a success - dropping Verizon’s stock. 

Imaging what Wave 2 would do? Or even Wave 3 - a longer protest?! 

Thank you all so much - from the bottom of my heart. Without you guys protesting, this would have not happened. Tumblr wouldn’t have heard our voices and the world wouldn’t know we do not tolerate the targetting of content creators and sex workers. 

So thank you. Really. 

Let me begin by saying: I am not the boss of you. You have your own agency and every right to completely ignore everything I’m about to say. I do wish, however, that you at least give it a moment or two of your time before you say “No.”

I’ve seen a lot of posts about how everyone’s freaking out because Tumblr is “dying” and how all of the old, grizzled blogs are staring at the whole situation with a jaded sense of apathy.

I’m with them in the sense that I also don’t think Tumblr will die because of the changes to their policy come December 17th. My reasons can be boiled down to these:

Tumblr is owned by a multi-billion dollar company.

People will keep using Tumblr.

Let’s start with #1. Tumblr is owned by Yahoo (which is owned by Verizon), which is worth billions of dollars (in fact, it bought Tumblr for roughly $1.1 billion and seems to be having trouble making that money back). It’s not run out of someone’s basement (no matter what the state of the mobile app’s coding would have you believe). They can take a hit if the income from the site dips for a while. It also means that, like most million and billion dollar companies, all they care about is making a profit. It’s the reason why they started the blanket ban on adult content to begin with: They got taken off the Apple Store so no one on iOS could download the mobile app.

Which brings us to #2. People will keep using this hellsite, in spite of these changes. Tumblr makes money mainly from sponsored ads. You’ve assuredly seen them at some point; posts that are nearly identical in format to normal posts, but with ads for everything from political figures, to Snickers, to Amazon, and to seemingly every mobile game ever created. This means, as long as you’re looking at Tumblr- if you use the app, have it downloaded, or open in a browser- you’re giving them money, indirectly though it might be. The apathy and mentality of “it’s just another fuckup. I’m not going anywhere” is essentially telling the company, “Yes, the way you handled this is fine. I’ll continue to give you my business.” You can make all the angry posts about it in the world, but, if the way they handled the porn bot and child pornography issues are anything to go by, doing that doesn’t change their behavior in any effective manner.

To this day, I still get followed by porn bots. At least four since the announcement, to be exact (and those are just the ones I’ve noticed). If I’m being honest, I had no idea that child pornography was so rampant on this site until I started digging into posts on here and reddit that talked about the policy changes (hint: it’s disgusting and, like most things, was handled poorly or essentially not at all by the staff). Posts that aren’t inappropriate are being flagged by the staff’s ineffective, buggy code/filter. That doesn’t even begin to cover the way they discriminated against “female-presenting nipples” (FREE THE NIPPLE).

There are a lot of users out there whose reasons for staying or not caring about the policy changes are something along the lines of: “It doesn’t affect me. I don’t post explicit images, so I don’t care. Sucks for those blogs, though. I’ll make a post about it.” Yeah, well... that’s kind of shitty. That’s the same kind of reasoning that allows for abuses of human rights all over the world. Don’t get me wrong, this issue is nothing compared to what some people around the world face... but your reasons are still shitty. There are plenty of legitimate artists and bloggers out there- people who have been on this site for years- who won’t be able to post on here anymore, and whose posts will be (for all intents and purposes) purged from the site. The worst part? With Tumblr staff’s track record, this won’t even solve the problems of porn bots and child pornography.

Now, let me be clear: I want staff to get rid of porn bots and child pornography. To have them on this site for as long as they’ve been here is appalling.

But the way they’re going about this won’t solve the problem, and the only way to get Tumblr and Yahoo/Verizon to listen is to speak the one language they understand and care about: Money. Dolla Dolla Bill Y’all. Greenbacks. Cash. Moola. Dough. Capital. Because of the way Tumblr works, this means... that’s right.

Logging off.

Not using the site.

Deleting the app.

I’m not saying you have to log off forever, but, at the very least, you should log off for a day. A full 24 hours.

The last two years have taught me a lesson in constantly reaching new lows in my level of trust in figures of power. Because of this, I know (despite the staff’s continued efforts to murder it) Tumblr won’t die.

But maybe- just maybe- it should.

Information about an organized Log Off Protest #logoff2018

Artemis: I think I can speak for all of us here (except Opal) when I say we deplore censorship of any kind, and commend those of you who are fighting against it. We will be joining you in solidarity, even though this is a SFW blog.

Mulch: What constitutes “safe for work”? Because a few of us have died and/or sustained serious injury just from being around you.

Holly: I agree with Artemis (and Mulch). But to those p*dos taking advantage of children, I will find you. And Butler will kill you.

It's nearly the 19th here, it's the 18th pretty much everywhere by now and the ban is in place.

To those who participated in the protest, to make a statement against the policy for whatever reason, thank you. There are a lot of reasons people joined in.

In the end we were up against the FOSTA-SESTA laws, and apple's corresponding crusade against adult content, and we're one site. It's disappointing that we didn't have any obvious impact, but honestly not surprising, and we can try again and again and again.

What we did prove with this is that we can organize. We proved that we can find common ground and put aside shipping wars and fandom feuds and other little things when it matters.

It matters now. It always mattered. Go out, find causes that matter to you and get involved. Organize.

There's a lot of fights to be won around the world. Now you know it's possible to organize, go out and do it. Take the revolutionary energy you found here and use it on whatever matters to you, whatever's going on in your country, your state, your city.

There are ways to fight anyone, with enough people. We can fight governments and companies and any force that tries to keep people down. Look to the history of generations of protest and revolution. Look to the theory, look to those with experience, and lead your own charge.

(And if, at times, your cause goes up against mine, so be it. You are not bound by any set of rules but your own.)

Protests are an essential part of how we make change and create the world we want to live in. If you ever see someone who doesn't think protests are ever useful, pity them for they have lost hope.

Know that the people are the consumers, and we can make a statement with our absence as much as with our presence. Know that the people are the workforce behind every company, and we can organize. Know that the people are every part of the corporate equation, and know that you have the power to tip the balance.

These are eventful times. Go out and be an event. Make noise. Do what is just and undo what is unjust.

This is my last post before I go silent for the tumblr protest today. I’ve expressed my views on this before but I’ll say it again, this new policy has been executed poorly, the algorithm doesn’t work, it’s unfair on sfw and nsfw contributors alike, and it doesn’t address the issues we’ve been complaining about like it claims. Tumblr has been lying and pretending to listen to its users for as long as there’s been issues and it’s protests like this that will hopefully get them to listen. There’s a really detailed good post explaining this better than I ever could floating around so I recommend looking into this problem closely with as many sources as you can. I cannot stress enough how much of a bad idea this is. This protest is important in saving the good nsfw content, such as erotica, commissions, anything consensual and legal basically. And it’ll also help the sfw stuff, medical posts, memes, etc. that have been unfairly tagged as well. This isn’t about porn. It’s about fandoms, artists, writers, and how they’re getting fucked over by a half assed attempt to fix a problem. I can’t say much that hasn’t already been said, and said better than what I said, so instead I’ll go silent. Tumblr wants to cut off its users? Then we’ll leave. Permanently or not, people aren’t gonna use this site for awhile. To prove that this isn’t right! Maybe if the effect is drastic enough Yahoo and all that will listen and work with us rather than trying to censor this platform and its content. So with all of that being said, this is goodbye until the 18th.

This whole event makes me think how the advent of the net inspired us to believe that whole ‘end of history’ idea. I guess we all thought things wouldn’t decay like they used to but we were wrong.