[fruzz]

Was on there from 2009 ~ 2016. Being queer & trans, it was the first online social platform where I could be exposed to new narratives and interact with others.

Previously it had been forums and YouTube, but neither felt as personal. I ended up meeting a former partner and current one on Tumblr.

Tumblr however was hemorrhaging money. The way they commercialized it following Yahoo's purchase discouraged trans authors: content was marked as NSFW no matter how innocuous and no longer readily accessible to unregistered members, tags that were used to find trans content became inundated with prn spammers.

Nothing has really filled the gap left by Tumblr.

[ihuman]

> content was marked as NSFW no matter how innocuous and no longer readily accessible to unregistered members

Why is this a bad thing? I've seen people mentioned this before in a negative way, but I don't understand why it hurts tumblr.

[speeder]

I used to read random people's tumblr, some gamedevs and whatnot had posts there.

What tumblr did was that suddenly all "NFSW" things to US standards (that are different from say... Japan standards), was hidden, not showing anymore on google searches, and when trying to click random hyperlinks ending on blocked content fairly often.

After this happened, I stopped reading tumblr, since I am not a poster, and have no intention of ever writing in tumblr, I don't feel like going through all the trouble of creating an account, and finding where they put the opt-in for NFSW posts, and keep logging on every time I click on a random link that tumblr moderation bot decided was NFSW.

I have a degree in digital animation, so I had for example tumblr block me from a blog that contained some references about character movements, because it featured "naked" characters (more like characters without texture genitals and clothes, but since women boobs you can't 'delete' from a model without changing how it works, they are always there, evne if without nipples, but in US culture that is frowned upon and get tagged NFSW).

Or some christian blogs talking about what is sinful or not, and so on. Tumblr differently than say... "Medium", is self styled less seriously, where people are more casual, not a place to find academic essays, so when the content is hidden, you can assume maybe is not worth your time going out of your way to register in the service that you have no intention of actually using.

[JackCh]

> "What tumblr did was that suddenly all "NFSW" things to US standards"

What was honestly expected? Tumblr was an American company and they got bought by another American company. The brand had a reputation for hardcore pornography which was doubtlessly toxic to advertisers (most of whom are also American companies), so expecting Yahoo to turn a blind eye just wasn't realistic.

If you want a website moderated to the Japanese standard, you should probably find a website run by a Japanese company that supports itself with advertisements purchased by Japanese companies (a Japanese company in the business of selling advertisements to American companies would probably apply the American standard.)

[schreiaj]

Presumably, because it's humiliating? If you're talking about a perfectly normal problem that is in no way NSFW (I'm not familiar enough with this space to give an example, I'm sorry) but it is marked as NSFW because it has something to do with being trans... I would assume that the feeling one would develop would be "my existence is NSFW" and eventually you disengage because nobody wants to feel they aren't accepted. To me, it would really just be "this thing is calling me as different when all I want is to find a community that accepts me".

But if someone with more experience in this wants to correct/expand on this I'd be grateful for the opportunity to understand better.

[fruzz]

It meant trans content disproportionately faced a barrier to access. It hurts trans youth in particular, who are less likely to stumble on content, but could really have used seeing it there.

[ihuman]

Was the content voluntarily marked NSFW, or did tumblr force the NSFW warning onto the content?

[fruzz]

For what I was referring to, it was Tumblr putting NSFW warnings on content. Also censoring content outright. One video I did covering how I did estrogen injections, for example, was auto-removed for being obscene. There was no nudity.

[ihuman]

Ok, that's the part I was missing that lead to my misunderstanding. I (incorrectly) assumed the posts were marked NSFW by the creators. Thank you for clarifying that for me. That's pretty awful of tumblr to do that.

[amyjess]

Nowadays you have to log in to see anything marked "sensitive content", and it doesn't show up on Google searches.

It kills discoverability.

[amyjess]

TBH, Reddit has always been considerably less toxic than Tumblr when it comes to trans stuff.

Sadly, the some of the larger trans subs have taken a turn for the toxic in the last couple of years or so, but 2013-2014 was a golden age, and even the current state of the trans subs is better than Tumblr ever was.

[ralusek]

If you'd like to see content for a subject moderated differently than how it is done in other subs, there are probably other likeminded people that would quickly join if you started another subreddit.