Okay, folks. So. Tumblr’s jumped the shark in a big way, and I’m not even just talking about indiscriminately blocking all “adult” content on a platform that IS, in fact, primarily 18+.
Many blogs, like the wonderful @blackkatmagic , that are not especially NSFW have vanished.
(And I for one LIKE being able to go to curated porn blogs run by actual people and have a chance of finding stuff to my taste, it was one of the things that kept me on this hellsite, but that’s another issue entirely.)
I know lots of people are talking about migrating, but none of us are sure to where yet. Pillowfort seems to be an option, some people are talking about Twitter. But for now, it’s a mess, and even if we knew where we were going, it’s often a huge process, and a lot of us have stuff on tumblr that ONLY exists there.
One possible quick solution to save your blogs, both NSFW and personal, is to import it to WordPress. I found this solution through from frantic googling on how to save an entire blog, text posts an all. There are several apps for downloading all the pictures from a tumblr, (Plently for Windows, but only a few paid ones for mac, of which Tumbelog Picture Downloader is working for me so far) but this is the only solution I’ve seen so far that allows you to save EVERYTHING. I downloaded my NSFW blog in like 10 min. My regular blog, which is significantly larger, is in the process of importing, but I don’t anticipate any problems. I will, of course, update you if I have any.
This tutorial I found worked really easily. http://quickguide (.) tumblr (.) com/post/39780378703/backing-up-your-tumblr-blog-to-wordpress
I put parenthesis around the .’s like we’re back in FF-Hell, just in case tumblr’s new thing about outgoing links kicks in. You know what to do.
To break it down, just in case:
Sign up for a WordPress.com account at wordpress (.) com/start
You’ll have to create an account, with your email, a username, and a password. They should send you a confirmation email immediately, check it, activate it, and you’re good to go.
On the site, it will ask you for a site name. That page asks you a bunch of other information too, but you only have to fill out the site name.
Then you have to give your site a URL. If you’re lucky, your tumblr URL is still available, if not you’ll have to come up with another one, sorry.
It will tell you if that option is still available for free.
Then it will ask you to pick a plan. Free is really good enough, I swear.
Now you’re set up! You can import your tumblr!
The only differences from the linked tutorial are that the Import button is now on the first level menu, not in tools.
Hit Import, then you have to follow the link for “other importers” at the bottom, to find the option for Tumblr.
Then you’ll have to sign in with tumblr, using your normal tumblr credentials. You’ll be redirected there automatically.
You’ll have to allow WordPress permissions on your blog.
Then your blogs, including all your sideblogs, will show up in wordpress.
Hit import, wait a WHILE depending on the size of your blog, and you’re done!
ALSO!!
I made my NSFW blog private for now, since I don’t know WP’s policy on NSFW.
This means that to access it, someone has to have an account and request access. But hey, part of our problem on this hellsite has been people going places they aren’t wanted, so I don’t personally see this as a bad thing. They can send a request from the landing site on your blog, you get an email, click a link in the email, and PRESTO, they have access.
To make it private, go to Settings > Reading > Site Visibility. Go back and check, it took me changing the setting twice for it to actually stick.
tl;dr, you can import your entire blog to wordpress in just a few steps.
I’m going to tag the hell out of this, in no particular order. PLEASE reblog this and spread the word so people know it’s an option. If you’re having trouble, PM me, and I’m happy to help.
There are a whole bunch more, but that’s a start. Please reblog the hell out of this, so people are aware of this one simple option.
For people asking how to backup thier blog
Honestly I‘m just tagging anyone I can remember blog names for and tagging I know I don‘t know any of y‘all really/you don’t know me by this blog but here spread this
thanks for tagging me, give this a go guys, it works pretty well and its good to have multiple backups (and idk if i trust tumblr’s export function rn)
you know if tumblr was a competent website, I wouldn’t mind their new “no nsfw allowed” policy. it’s a little irritating that they couch it in “we want to make sure everyone feels comfortable and welcome” when filtering existed for awhile, but ok. it’s their website.
except there’s a huge precedent of censoring queer content every time a social media website wants to censor nsfw content. youtube got in trouble for that years ago. it was a huge problem with tumblr’s safe mode.
speaking of tumblr safe mode, remember that a whole bunch of sfw posts were marked as nsfw or “sensitive” by tumblr algorithms? how about during the latest purge when a bunch of innocent blogs were deleted because of whatever algorithm they use? how about when tags like “chronic pain” were censored? how about the fact that people abuse the hell out of the report system to delete blogs that they don’t like off of tumblr, because tumblr doesn’t really verify reports and will delete any blog that gets enough of them?
I could keep going but my point is: tumblr is extremely incompetent when it comes to how it handles nsfw content. everyone who has been on here for more than a week would know this.
the announcement is so vaguely worded too. what are the “some exceptions” to their policy banning adult content and nudity? how can you talk about banning that but also talk about the importance of sex positivity, art, and self expression? is sex education allowed? can people talk about their sexuality? can survivors of sexual assault and rape talk about their experience? what if someone thinks that their discussion is too graphic and must be pornography? what if someone’s tasteful artistic nudes is someone else’s pornography?
maybe to y’all it should be “common sense”, but when I see that, all I can think about is how unless tumblr clearly defines their rules and spells them out for everyone, it’s open to abuse. hell, people already abuse the policies they have in place.
and when you combine that with a history of tumblr deleting blogs that don’t violate the tos, censoring tags that aren’t nsfw, marking innocent posts nsfw, and just… everything about tumblr’s shitty history of dealing with actual problems like porn bots, nsfw content popping up in recommended posts and the gif search, recently having nsfw ads….
if you don’t think you have to worry about this, you really should. even if you don’t post adult content at all, or you think that what you do post is one of the exceptions to tumblr’s new policy. sure this is gonna hit some blogs harder than others, but it’s gonna have an impact on everyone. well, except maybe the blogs that are actually causing harm. for some reason those blogs always seem to thrive no matter what tumblr does.
I have read the actual update now and it did answer one of my questions (what the exceptions are) and from what I understand:
what is not allowed: photos, videos and gifs of genitalia and “female presenting nipples”, any visual depiction of sex (including art)
what is allowed: pictures of nipples in the case of breastfeeding, political protest, birth photos, and post mastectomy photos, and artistic nudity.
in other words: no sex allowed at all, real life “female presenting” breasts are only ok in medical or political contexts. you can draw nudity but you can’t draw sex, written erotica is untouched as far as I can tell.
this has already caused confusion over art being allowed or not
I am personally raising an eyebrow at “female presenting nipples” bit, especially when they also clarify that post mastectomy photos were allowed…. so are afab trans and nb nipples not allowed unless they have a mastectomy even tho they aren’t “presenting” as female? lmao. are trans women’s nipples only allowed until they get gender confirmation surgery? like I know damn well that they mean “afab tiddies aren’t allowed” but trying to make it more trans inclusive ironically feels like a slap in the face.
and I still wonder how the hell they are gonna enforce this policy change when they are already failing with the policies they have in place that are less work on their filters and moderators.
I need to know the specific steps they are taking to protect the queer community on tumblr. I need to know what steps they are taking so they aren’t purging innocent blogs and tags. I need to know what improvements they have made to their filters so innocent posts are not automatically flagged as sensitive.
the problem is I don’t think they have made any steps that would prevent this system from turning into a chaotic cluster fuck that disproportionately targets the queer community instead of the porn bots and cp, because that’s always what happens. and honestly this seems like the lazy “quick fix” to their problems instead of trying to make their existing system work.
Im just thinking about that experiment a trans girl did on Instagram (which also had a Female Presenting Nipples ban) where she posted a picture of herself shirtless every single day starting on day 1 of her HRT trying to see at which point the instagram mods would decide that “Yep those are woman boobs we’re shutting this down”
⚠️Please read if you are a content creator or sex worker!! Adult content will no longer be allowed on tumblr starting December 17th⚠️
I do not give a fuck if this doesn’t suit your blog. Boost this so everyone can prepare and have a backup plan. This is absolute bullshit but they were never supporting us anyway.
And don’t give me “we don’t pay our taxes” because we do. Bye. Thanks for turning into shit Instagram.
Alright, so it looks like they won’t be outright deleting adult content, at least. Probably don’t have to worry about your stuff just vanishing.
since Tumblr is being A Fuck, I’m getting a Pillowfort account. If I vanish before then, contact me on oneonone.freeforums.net, I’m the only active mod there. Just throw somethin in the chat box at the bottom of the main page.
Since its founding in 2007, Tumblr has always been a place for wide open, creative self-expression at the heart of community and culture. To borrow from our founder David Karp, we’re proud to have inspired a generation of artists, writers, creators, curators, and crusaders to redefine our culture and to help empower individuality.
Over the past several months, and inspired by our storied past, we’ve given serious thought to who we want to be to our community moving forward and have been hard at work laying the foundation for a better Tumblr. We’ve realized that in order to continue to fulfill our promise and place in culture, especially as it evolves, we must change. Some of that change began with fostering more constructive dialogue among our community members. Today, we’re taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions).
Let’s first be unequivocal about something that should not be confused with today’s policy change: posting anything that is harmful to minors, including child pornography, is abhorrent and has no place in our community. We’ve always had and always will have a zero tolerance policy for this type of content. To this end, we continuously invest in the enforcement of this policy, including industry-standard machine monitoring, a growing team of human moderators, and user tools that make it easy to report abuse. We also closely partner with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation, two invaluable organizations at the forefront of protecting our children from abuse, and through these partnerships we report violations of this policy to law enforcement authorities. We can never prevent all bad actors from attempting to abuse our platform, but we make it our highest priority to keep the community as safe as possible.
So what is changing?
Posts that contain adult content will no longer be allowed on Tumblr, and we’ve updated our Community Guidelines to reflect this policy change. We recognize Tumblr is also a place to speak freely about topics like art, sex positivity, your relationships, your sexuality, and your personal journey. We want to make sure that we continue to foster this type of diversity of expression in the community, so our new policy strives to strike a balance.
Why are we doing this?
It is our continued, humble aspiration that Tumblr be a safe place for creative expression, self-discovery, and a deep sense of community. As Tumblr continues to grow and evolve, and our understanding of our impact on our world becomes clearer, we have a responsibility to consider that impact across different age groups, demographics, cultures, and mindsets. We spent considerable time weighing the pros and cons of expression in the community that includes adult content. In doing so, it became clear that without this content we have the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves.
Bottom line: There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.
So what’s next?
Starting December 17, 2018, we will begin enforcing this new policy. Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose. All changes won’t happen overnight as something of this complexity takes time.
Another thing, filtering this type of content versus say, a political protest with nudity or the statue of David, is not simple at scale. We’re relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check. We know there will be mistakes, but we’ve done our best to create and enforce a policy that acknowledges the breadth of expression we see in the community.
Most importantly, we’re going to be as transparent as possible with you about the decisions we’re making and resources available to you, including more detailed information, product enhancements, and more content moderators to interface directly with the community and content.
Like you, we love Tumblr and what it’s come to mean for millions of people around the world. Our actions are out of love and hope for our community. We won’t always get this right, especially in the beginning, but we are determined to make your experience a positive one.
Maybe you could show her images of well cared-for bettas and nice habitats? Make a case for getting some live plants or say you like the naturalistic look. Honestly, I’ve seen some beautiful tanks made out of large fishbowls – they sell empty bowls as large as at least 4 gallons, and you can find heaters and filters to fit them and make a satisfactory and pretty betta or shrimp habitat. Technically you can get by without a filter if you have a large heated bowl with just one betta and are diligent about water changes, especially if you have live plants (Java Fern and Java moss don’t require fancy lights). It’s probably easier to go for a cheap rectangular tank – and easier to prevent your fish from jumping out.
I’ve seen those little cyclops monster bowls, and the thing is, they also block out much of your view of your fish! What’s with the opaque sides? For a fish as lovely as a betta, you want to see as much of it as possible.
Also, maybe take the plastic bowl and put marimos in it. Use it for something, just… not a fish. They are cute, so make something cute with it.
BettSplendens Tumblr Evac 