For those of you who haven’t seen this announcement, tumblr recently made some changes to the iOS version of the app, purportedly to comply with Apple’s content guidelines. These changes took effect on Dec 21, starting in version 22.5.1 of the iOS app. As some of you may recall, Apple’s strict guidelines were the driving force for the infamous Great Purge of 2018, which coincidentally also happened around this time of year, but it seems banning all of the female-presenting nipples wasn’t good enough for Apple.
Below is a summary of the important changes. Note that these changes technically ONLY affect those using the iOS app. If you’re accessing tumblr through a different app or operating system (Google Chrome, Android app, etc) it won’t affect you directly but it will affect your followers who use iOS so you should definitely be aware of it.
The list of banned tags has been expanded. As before, there’s no way to know which words or phrases have been banned until you try searching for them, in which case you’ll either get no search results or the following message: “This content has been hidden because of potentially suggestive or explicit content.” You may think this doesn’t concern you if you don’t post explicit material, but do not make the mistake of expecting the banned tags to be logical or reasonable. I’ve already encountered multiple completely innocuous posts (random fandom gifsets) that seem to be hidden on iOS for no discernible reason.
Blogs that have been flagged as explicit can no longer be viewed. Previously, flagged blogs just had their posts hidden from searches, but if you knew the username you could still visit it after clicking through a warning about sensitive content. Now you can’t access it at all.
Likes and reblogs from blogs that have been flagged will no longer show up in your notes. This one won’t affect most people’s user experience as much as the others, but it does mean you may be missing notes. It’s unclear if likes and reblogs from flagged blogs will still count towards the overall note total (and only be missing from the activity feed and note viewer) but I suspect that’s the case.
THE BIG ONE: ANY POST TAGGED WITH A BANNED TAG WILL NO LONGER SHOW UP ON YOUR DASHBOARD. Previously, if you tagged a post with a banned word or phrase (even if the words were used inside another tag), that post would not show up in searches, but your followers would still be able to see it on their dashboard. Now those posts are hidden from your own followers as well. This includes both original posts and reblogs. And if that wasn’t bad enough, here’s the real kicker: even if you don’t tag something with one of the banned words, if the OP used a banned tag, any reblogs of that post will not show up on anyone’s dashboard (on the iOS app). The only saving grace here, and I hate to even call it that, is that the blocked posts are still visible if you visit a blog directly or if you have post notifications turned on.
As usual, tumblr was extremely unclear and evasive about all of this in their official announcement. Not surprising, of course, since if more people were aware of these new draconian tactics I can’t imagine there wouldn’t be more of an uproar about it. Tumblr claims that these changes are somewhat temporary and that they are currently working on something that will allow for a less restricted iOS experience, but they refuse to say what that something is and when it will be implemented. And let’s just say, considering their track record, I’m not hopeful.
All of this is horrible and infuriating for many reasons, but the worst part is how insanely counterproductive it is to creating the “safe” environment tumblr (or more specifically Apple) supposedly wants.
Tags have always been used for both blog organization and filtering purposes. Tagging posts with triggers and content warnings is a common practice that gives users the ability to filter out content they may find upsetting or just don’t don’t want to see for whatever reason. By choosing to ban a bunch of unlisted “sensitive content” tags, all they’re doing is encouraging people who want to share that kind of content to come up with alternative less well-known tags or simply not tag that content at all anymore if they want it to show up on their follower’s dashboards, thereby making it more likely for someone to encounter it when they didn’t want to.
So really, with all of the alleged concern for safety and “protecting the children,” all they’ve done is make tumblr less safe for everyone. Typical.
i’ve seen multiple gifsets now cut off with a “view post” button under the first two gifs instead of showing the whole set….
this is not good news for gifmakers.
oh shit it’s not even just gifsets! i just saw a regular medium length post with screenshots and memes, literally no gifs and it was under a “view post” link…
alright y’all. it’s a new setting you’ll have to turn off if you don’t want to have to click to see posts all the time
god the tumblr experience for me is so often like ‘ugh i sort of agree with this post… but also i can see how the thing being objected to is reasonable in its own way… and frankly the objection is couched in really dickish terms… and also i hate at least one of the users involved… guess i’ll just stay out of this fight but walk away indefinably more irritated than before…’
Why do people reblog ask meme responses instead of just starting their own post? There’s a reblog chain going on on one of my ask meme responses and I keep getting notifs. I don’t know any of these people. I’m not going to read their answers. Start a new post ffs.
I don’t like this new “automatically shorten posts” feature; my brain doesn’t register the Expand button so I just keep scrolling through half-posts. What was under the cut? I will never know.
i feel like tumblr is doing something kind of revolutionary with its advertising rn? like… if they’re doing what I suspect they’re doing, it’s almost impressive?
tumblr: hey, we need money to keep the lights on so here’s an ad for ball shaving devices
me: i am not the target market but okay! thanks!
tumblr: hey, sorry, but you scrolled down past two posts so now it’s ad time. how about you shave your balls, huh?
tumblr: hey you need anything for that ball shaving thing, orrrr..?
me: you like. you HAVE to know that i do not. in fact, based on a real rough read of the demographics of my followers, it seems like you have massively misjudged your audience for these ads? like, ball-havers seem to be a pretty small subset of users here?
tumblr: no, no, got it.
me:squints
me: okay, i’m gonna scroll down ag-
tumblr: hey, how about you shave your balls for once, huh????!!!
me:… is this the only ad you’re running now? like, not only are all my ads for ball shaving tools, you’re running them so close to each othet it that feels 50% of my dash is ball shaving tool ads?
tumblr: hey we’re sorry but we need money, and we only get money when someone clicks on an ad, so-
me: BUT WHO IS ACTUALLY DOING THAT???! BECAUSE MOST OF US? WE DO NOT HAVE BALLS?!!!?? Like, why not just diversify your ad sponsors to buy something that we can actually use? just like… maybe plug one! other! product! or! service! IDEALLY UNRELATED TO SHAVING BALLS!
tumblr: we actually were just about to drop a new ad for a totally different product! totally unrelated to balls!
me: awesome, thanks man, that’s progress. what’s the new ad camp-
tumblr:
tumblr: gimme 40 bucks and it stops. 40 bucks and i’ll cool it for a whole year year.
me: does…. does manscaped know you’re doing this? like, do they know their ads are now enforcing an extortion attempt or-
tumblr: LALALALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF ALL YOUR BALLS THAT NEED SHAVING unless you have 40 bucks that is. 40 bucks and this can end right here.
the point of this hellsite is not to get followers, it’s to make friends you would never have met otherwise and torture them with cursed memes and crack headcanons
the point of this hellsite is not to get followers, it’s to make friends you would never have met otherwise and torture them with cursed memes and crack headcanons
