thetallulahhh - Tumblr blog

[thetallulahhh]

presented without comment

[thetallulahhh]

A message from a few of the trans staff at Tumblr & Automattic:

We want trans people, and LGBTQ+ people broadly, to feel welcome on Tumblr, in part because we as trans people at Tumblr and Automattic want it to be a space where we ourselves feel included. We want to feel like this is a platform that supports us and fights for our safety. Tumblr is made brighter and more vibrant by your presence, and the LGBTQ+ folks who help run it are fighting all the time for this, for you, internally. 

A few days ago, Matt Mullenweg (the CEO of Automattic, Tumblr’s parent company) responded to a user’s ask about an account suspension in a way that negatively affected Tumblr’s LGBTQ+ community. We believe that Matt's response to this ask and his continued commentary has been unwarranted and harmful. Tumblr staff do not comment on moderation decisions as a matter of policy for a variety of reasons—including the privacy of those involved, and the practicalities of moderating thousands of reports a day. The downside of this policy is that it is very easy for rumors and incorrect information about actions taken by our Trust & Safety team to spread unchecked. Given this, we want to clarify a few different pieces of this situation:

The reality of predstrogen's suspension was not accurately conveyed, and made it seem like we were reaching for opportunities to ban trans feminine people on the platform. This is not the case. The example comment shared in the post linked above does not meet our definition of a realistic threat of violence, and was not the deciding factor in the account suspension.

Matt thereafter failed to recognize the harm to the community as a result of this suspension. Matt does not speak on behalf of the LGBTQ+ people who help run Tumblr or Automattic, and we were not consulted in the construction of a response to these events.

Last year, the "mature" and "sexual themes" community labels were erroneously applied to some users' posts. An outside team of contractors tasked with applying community labels to posts were responsible for this larger trend of mislabeling trans-related content. When our Trust & Safety team discovered this issue (thanks largely to reports from the community), we removed the contracted team’s ability to apply community labels and added more oversight to ensure it does not happen again. In the Staff post about this, LGBTQ+ staff pushed to be more transparent but were overruled by leadership. The termination of a contractor mentioned in the original ask response was for an unrelated incident which was incorrectly attributed to this case. We regret that the mislabeling ever happened, and the negative impact it has had on the trans community on Tumblr. 

Transition timelines are not against our community guidelines, and weren’t a factor considered by the moderation team when discussing suspensions and subsequent appeals. We do not take action against content that is related to transitioning or trans bodies unless it includes violations of the Community Guidelines.

When it comes to the experience of trans folks on Tumblr encountering transphobic content, and interacting with bigoted users, we understand and share your frustrations. Tumblr’s policies, and Automattic’s policies, are written to ensure freedom of speech and expression. We prohibit harassment as defined in our Community Guidelines, but we know that this policy falls short of protecting users from the wider scope of harmful speech often used against LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people.

Going forward, Tumblr is taking the following actions:

Prioritizing anti-harassment features that will empower users to more effectively protect themselves from harassment.

Building more internal tooling for us as Staff to proactively identify and mitigate instances of harassment.

Reviewing which of the tags frequently used by the trans community are blocked, and working to make them available next week.

We’re sorry for how this all transpired, and we’re actively fighting to make our voices heard more and prevent something like this from happening again in the future. We know firsthand that having to deal with situations like this as a Tumblr user is difficult, particularly as a member of an already frequently targeted and harassed community. We know it will take time to regain your trust, and we’re going to put in the work to rebuild it.

We appreciate the space we have been given to express our concerns and dissent, and we are thankful that Matt’s (and Automattic’s) strong commitment to freedom of expression has facilitated it.

We will continue to fight to make Tumblr safe for us all.

— This statement was authored by multiple trans employees of Tumblr and Automattic.

[thetallulahhh]

[thetallulahhh]

[thetallulahhh]

have you thought about trans women in a normal way today

[thetallulahhh]

[thetallulahhh]

just ur avg joe

[thetallulahhh]

Wow! It's Greyed: Milk

A YTP of an instructional video for milk pasteurization plants from 1946 Full video with captions here!

[thetallulahhh]

[thetallulahhh]

Embrace tradition

Back in the day men dressed like men

[thetallulahhh]

The US Copyright Office is opening a public comment period around AI

American friends! The US Copyright Office (which we know exerts huuuge influence in how these things are treated elsewhere) wants to hear opinions on copyright and AI.

"The US Copyright Office is opening a public comment period around AI and copyright issues beginning August 30th as the agency figures out how to approach the subject."

We can assume that the opposing side will definitely be using all of their lobbying power towards widespread AI use, so this is a very good chance to let them know your thoughts on AI and how art and creative content of all kinds should be protected.

[thetallulahhh]

Ah yes, the 4 genders

[thetallulahhh]

Tag urself, I'm Mysteries We Were Not Meant To Know

Kinda feel like there's some untapped meme/reaction image potential from old horror movie trailers...

[thetallulahhh]

I want to say that with trans folk now being at risk of the fucking death sentence in Florida....

The time for community is Now. The time to start planning and organizing how to get our rights back is NOW. bring it up at your local LGBT craft events or book club or support group or whatever. Tell your friends. Spread the word. And maybe see which ones will have the safety and resources you'll need should a Lavender Hunt happen in your area.

And on the scarier end of reality....

This is fucking terrifying. Lots of people are at risk. Personally, I'm terrified this rhetoric will spread much like Trumpism did. I'm scared for my gf and I'm fucking scared for myself because we know historically that it isn't just trans folk on HRT or drag performers that they go after.

And you have every right to do whatever you need to protect yourself.

I'm not going to shame folks who quit HRT, who take the rainbows out of their bio, the people who start saying partner instead of revealing a gender, or anyone else taking a few steps towards the safety that the closet provides. WE shouldn't.

I fucking love you. And we'll be okay as long as we're together, okay?

We keep us safe

[thetallulahhh]

[2021]

[thetallulahhh]

[thetallulahhh]