Climbing Moss

December 17th 2018 the day the internet died.

Well for many that is, it is the day Tumblr committed suicide.

The blogging giant sent out a policy changed notice at the start of December that read as follows…

Much like when Facebook bought out Myspace and made it impossible to be individual and creative, wanting everyone in the world to have exactly the same FB page, Tumblr are stopping the creatives of the world from having their own voice and not just you and me, everyone from Lili Reinhart to Ariana Grandé are feeling the pinch and stopping their creative flow.

If you have/had Tumblr you’d know it was great, post what you want, when you want, whether that be poetry, fanart, fanfiction, selfies, your own photographs, or porn, it didn’t matter it was all accepted there, a community that loved everything and everyone. It was a community where you could find like minded people and the support network within the site was amazing, whether you were suffering from depression, eating discorders or part of the LGBTQ world there was always a place for you and friends to be reach out to. Then December 2018 came and that all went to shit (sorry Tumblr safe words only – naughty number 2’s!)

So 12/17 came and went for us it was spent in quiet protest avoiding the website, logged off and closed off from anything happening on the site. 

12/18 came and we signed back on to find, emails and messages like this over most of the previous posts.

 And every time you attempted to post new content, it got immediately flagged and blocked, to the point where you couldn’t even see your own tumblr page because everything was marked as

So all the blogs you followed because you liked their content and not because they posted porn, were filled with these messages and these posts with adult content could be anything from a pair of legs, to a male celebrity with chilled nipples inside his shirt, even a picture of these puppies because (guess what) you can see a nipple.

Every time you see one of these ‘Banned Images’ you can just hear the Tumblr staff;

‘No that is far too rude for our poor, sensitive Christian eyes to take, we must ban it, no you can’t look upon this filth, filth, filth I say’. So there we were the week before Christmas unable to post our usual Santa’s little Helper pictures

Because of the obscene content, in this case bums, yes, bums are too offensive and this whole concept that Santa needs this kind of help is banned too!

It’s not just nudity, even something like this, A positive quote, telling you exactly how I feel, something that is about acceptance and equality, well according to tumblr it contains graphic content with adult themes. I mean really? Are you sure?!

So we were left reeling, trying to work out what was allowed and what was not, most sites were filled with blocked content messages, many just shut down, deactivated the account straight away and heading for alternatives instead, like the cleverly named Cumblr.com or NewTumbl.com where adult content is encouraged with a censorship system (you mark the X rating of the post and then set your preferences to which rating you want to see).  

Then last week Tumblr finally added ‘Review Flagged Posts’ section where all your offending articles are sent, like the detention class after school. Where you can go and try to redeem your posts, try to get one of the puritanical staff to look upon the images that they fear will cast them to the bad place for all eternity and get them to see that your image isn’t strong enough to offend anyone.

So now Tumblr is looking very PC and PG, no offending bums, boobs, no drugs, no suicide notes, no music with lyrics to offend, no poetry about death or fanfic about Dean Winchester getting it on with Betty Cooper, so we are all clean here.

But are we really? 

You see if you go to one of the BIG blogs, those with over 100,000 followers you’ll see this (warning naughty girls and boys doing naughty things)…

Yes Tamten still has more than enough adult content and this is the top of their page, posted today, brand new porn, they never suffered the restrictions, because they are enough big enough or are paying their way out of the ban, yes paying for your business to advertise and have it’s own Tumblr page Like Christian Dior  or Huion Tablets will allow you to post what the hell you want, but also simply paying for one of the themes that your page uses will afford you a free pass around the ban.

So once again we find ourselves here again, you want something for fun, for free well you can’t have it, you want it, you have to pay for it, you want freedom well that’s expensive, how much more than you can ever offer. No Tumblr is purging itself of the little people, the ones that have done their jobs, they made the company one of the biggest on the internet and now companies are interested and throwing money at them, we are not needed any longer, they just need to get rid of us, so

Step 1. Ban the creative individuals

Step 2. Allow anyone paying to post what they want.

Step 3. Get more businesses to add a Tumblr page.

Step 4. Make billions and screw people for as much as we can.

Oh hold that’s all done, so where are we now step 6, 7, 8?

Well where ever we are we are not on Tumblr any more, whether you closed your account or it’s just sitting there dormant most are not using it as they were and those that are are towing the party line, posting PC content only. We still have our own pages, but are not posting on there and are waiting on newtumbl.com to be fully up and running to see how that fares. So stay tuned for future comments or posts on where you can post your fanfic, your sexy pictures and your favorite songs. 

---

So what do you think of Tumblr’s new policies? Are you a fan? Are you a zealot set on sending the internet back to a Victorian puritanical time? Are we wrong to want to post our content and not be judged? Well you can follow us on less restricting Social Media (to varying degrees) Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest and Facebook.

And come back here every week where we are still allowed to give you our opinions on things we like and dislike, even though we still seem to be getting ridiculous comments such as 

Nick Mulgrave proving that stupid really does exist.