Additionally, the post title 'Tumblr disappears [someone]' pretty much implies they're not being sent to the gulag or gitmo, it's just a figure of speech.
People sent to the gulag were, as far as I know, never disappeared. They were arrested, subjected to a trial, and sentenced. Transitive "disappear" entered modern English from Spanish used to describe the actions of the US's allies against their citizens during the Cold War.