#tumblr blackout

[mangedog]

tumblr blackout proposal

tumblr mobile has steadily become near unusable these past few updates. not just from a user experience perspective (which is important enough in itself) but also from an accessibility perspective.

examples include the new way the image viewer works (if you can call it "working"), the tumblr live button replacing the profile button, and that newly created blogs will be forced to have their main dashboard tab be the 'for you' page.

the demands of the protest would be along the lines of:

reverse the recent image viewer update

scrap the new users 'for you' page default setting

let us turn off tumblr live indefinitely

increase efforts against spam / porn bots

make reporting abuse and hate speech as easy as reporting as reporting spam

let us go nuts show nuts again... for real this time

remove flashing ads, including not accepting blaze campaigns for posts with flashing in them

commit to improving usability and accessibility, and listening to users!

(suggestions welcome!)

to protest against these usability issues, and inspired by the recent reddit blackout, i propose a 48 hour blackout (where you don't use tumblr at all). preferably of both mobile and web (since web has problems too) but mobile is the focus here.

[edit: a 'blackout' is when you don't log in, or interact with the site at all, for [x] amount of time.]

I suggest from the 30th of June.

this marks the end of pride month (for the "queerest place on the internet") and the start of disability month (since accessibility is a massive issue here).

tumblr office is in San Francisco, USA, so the times and dates will be calculated using their time zone (PDT).

you can find out the times and dates for your timezone here.

i can't afford to blaze this post so please spread it around as much as possible! protests only work if significant numbers show up!

edit: tumblr rejected the blaze campaigns for this post because they know it would hurt them. let's make this an indefinite blackout - it's the best way to get results.

edit 2: plain text version of this post

#again‚ suggestions welcome :) #dogpost #tumblr #tumblr dot com #tumblr.com #tumblr blackout #tumblr protest #accessibility issues #user experience #accessibility #ideally they would just integrate xkit toggles but we know they wont do that lol #tumblr strike

[pastacrylic]

The Tumblr blackout thing is completely nonsensical because not only does Tumblr not function like Reddit, but also??? The person "organizing" it keeps saying they "haven't thought that far ahead" every time someone points out a glaring issue with the plan??

How do you want everyone to join a STRIKE without knowing anything about organizing one, and on such short notice?

Literally didn't think about how communication would work during the blackout, or how long the blackout would actually last, or how the website functions at all, this is all very silly.

Unless a better, reasonable strike plan is devised, I will not be participating

#tumblr blackout #pastacrylic rant

[faytelumos]

It's been brought to my attention that the proposed Tumblr blackout is actually going to be harmful for disabled folks, as it removes the ability to have users fix improperly tagged content and will decrease the reach of Disability Pride Month content.

So I'm not going to be stepping away this week.

This is an issue that several people have tried to mention to the one who proposed the blackout, and the message has been repeatedly ignored. Though the blackout had an impact on Reddit, the truth of it is that Tumblr is not Reddit and so we likely need to use different methods.

Please do not join the blackout. It will actually harm those with disabilities, because it will prevent many people from seeing and spreading disability awareness content.

Sorry for the confusion, and thank you for the understanding.

#Tumblr blackout #Disability Pride Month #accessability #🕸️ #edit: not my dumb ass using a deaf metaphor in a post about helping people with disabilities #(I'm sorry)

[liminalweirdo]

happy disability pride month

reminder that if you're mad at tumblr and are having reservations about the blackout (valid) and aren't sure what to do, leaving a negative and explanatory review on the tumblr app store (actually expressing why the site is becoming more frustrating to use) and deleting the app may help.

Please do not leave tumblr completely during the only month where disabled voices are actually heard. Please support your disabled friends and disabled tumblr users this month.

here's a couple reminders of what people want changed, please feel free to add more!

flashing lights on ads (inaccessible, not disability-friendly)

ads with noise

inability to turn off tumblr live permanently

the push towards short-form videos that no one wants

maybe request that the staff communicates better with users and operates with more transparency rather than just... making changes no one wants.

#tumblr #tumblr blackout #disability pride month #disability #disabled #disabled pride #disability pride #disabled community #disability community #pride wrath

[heatheroic]

hey, to anyone who saw the tumblr blackout protest proposal i formerly reblogged, I've since looked into it and the consensus seems to be it will be much more harmful than helpful, especially because it's at the beginning of disability pride month, and also that the format of the protest is not something that will inspire change. and the organizer of the blackout has ignored and brushed off any criticisms of this. so I will no longer be participating. so sorry for spreading that without properly doing my research.

#tumblr blackout

[talisidekick]

This blog is not participating in the Tumblr "Blackout"

Why? It's the start of Disability Pride month. Much of the systems in society are deliberately hostile to disabled folk, even the ones that are supposed to "help" them. Pride last month around the world held events that weren't accessible for disabled queers. These people are routinely cut out from society, assaulted, harrassed, and treated less than second class. People will physically move people in wheelchairs out of their way, cut them off, and stand in front of them as they try to move. They're shamed, insulted, laughed at, and mocked.

I know many are upset about Tumblrs recent changes, but if you truly want to help increase the accessibility of this site, especially for the sight or hearing impared or those who need to use third party applications to help them navigate the site, then a blackout isn't the way to do it. What you can do is add disability tags to your liked tags, or search up disability tags and see what disabled folk are saying they need from the site and either pay to blaze or come together as a community to amplify their voices and drown out ableists that constantly put them down. Disabled people face unique bigotry and deserve to have their needs blasted to the crowd and actions taken by abled folk to help them in the way they ask to be helped. One of the biggest issues I commonly see is abled folk assuming they know whats best for someone with a disability. If you're not disabled in the way someone else is, never assume you know what their needs are; always ask and listen closely.

This is a link to the proposed blackout and further reasons at the bottom why you shouldn't join this attempt, largely because Tumblr is set up in such a way that a blackout would do nothing but silence disabled voices:

Do not join the blackout. Go support disabled folk instead. Sit down and listen to them. They've a lot to be angry about, and it's damn time people listened.

#disability pride #disability pride month #disability #tumblr #tumblr blackout #neurodivergent #physically disabled #talisidekick #talisidekick things

[phossyjaw]

i keep seeing this post. this will not work.

you can't protest with a given end date. you all just saw what happened to reddit. they held out for 48 hours and then forced everything to go back up. tumblr doesn't work like reddit anyways. the point of a protest is to keep protesting indefinitely until your demands are met.

you have to find different avenues to make your wants from tumblr staff known. a blackout won't do that. they'll just hold out for 48 hours then go back to normal.

please, leave 1 star reviews stating what you don't like about the app. email tumblr support. you have to communicate your wants to them. they don't care about their users. you have to be loud.

#tumblr blackout

[friendofthecrows]

Who would like to add to a running list about things tumblr should change (and which are most important?)

It has four total questions, has short explanations of why the questions are there, is open response (so you are not trapped by the options I choose/think of), can be taken by anyone regardless of whether they will be participating in the blackout, and does not collect emails. All results will be published.

Reblogs for more data are greatly appreciated <3

#tumblr #tumblr update #tumblr features #tumblr staff #tumblr feedback #tumblr blackout #tumblr strike #survey #hal rambles

[samijami]

Ya'know something weird about the Tumblr blackout?

It was scheduled for the end of pride month, and the beginning of disability pride month.

And everyone knows that this won't work, given this never works. The best way to get a change would be review bombing.

Now, the blackout targets the last day we can celebrate pride month on Tumblr, and the first few days of disability pride month on Tumblr. And I think it's rather purposeful.

Now let me make an official proposal.

Let's review bomb the shit out of Tumblr from now onwards until we get a change. It might take a while, but it won't kill off a social media for no reason whatsoever.

Let's annoy the everloving shit out of Tumblr.

#tumblr blackout #review bombing #tumblr review bombing #review bomb tumblr #don't do the blackout #important #spread this #please share #signal boost #reblog this #pls boost #boost this

[photosensitive-despair]

This blog will not be participating in the tumblr blackout. Doing it during disability pride month is ableist, especially since what we need is people to be more vocal about concerns especially then and to not just leave the disabled people still here with less people who will listen to them and their concerns. We need comparatively abled people to step up and listen to us, not to just leave us.

It will not work. Less users on the site making their voices heard through bad reviews, spreading awareness and education on accessibility, sending asks to staff blogs and support emails, etc., is less incentive for staff of the site to do anything. Tumblr stands more to gain from less of this kind of interaction and more people just dropping the site. Why fix issues if people just leave so you don't hear them complain anymore? Tumblr isn't the same as Reddit.

It's poorly thought out at best while being ignorantly ableist, and maliciously ableist at worst. Especially with doing this with disability pride month.

It even makes this blog harder to run since with people offsite, they won't be able to fix tags on posts. Hazardous posts that could kill someone or injure them will be left up longer or the education just ignored. You're encouraging people to ignore the accessibility issues on their blogs by not being able to correct them if they cannot login.

Call off the blackout. This is endangering photosensitives like me more than helping us.

@transmascanine

- BlackBox

#momentary despair #hope talk #tumblr blackout #epilepsy #neurodivergency #photosensitivity #neuropunk #madpunk #ableism #disability

[buildabettermeme]

No Blackout for Disability Pride Month

Come on now. This is stupid.

If you want Tumblr to feel the sting of your disagreements, withhold money from them. That has worked in the past.

I am a Reddit migrator and I don't think you guys understand how important the difference between Tumblr and Reddit is.

Reddit doesnt have staff. They have volunteer moderators. These people donate free time to making the site function well. Without them Reddit wouldnt work at all.

Tumblr has staff, to everyone's chagrin. Unfortunately implementing the very stupidest ideas and pissing off their entire user base is what they get payed to do.

This means Tumblr needs money. So weaponize that, not disabled people's one time of year they get treated like kind of human. The disabled will always need us more than Tumblr ever will.

If you don't care about disabled people, sorry not sorry, I have better people to care about than you.

Just use your brain. We got Pride Month; it's the disabled/chronically ill community's turn now. Do not take this from them.

Do not take the disabled's community away.

#tumblr blackout #reddit defector #reddit blackout #disability pride month #disabled #physically disabled #mentally disabled #intellectually disabled #disabled in any way #community

[mangedog]

tumblr blackout protest: masterpost

original post proposing the blackout

current plan is:

48 hour blackout (june 30th - july 1st, PDT time zone)

see what the response is from staff (if any)

organise an (actually organised…) longer blackout.

keep going - and increasing the length - until we get the response we want

update: how did the blackout go?

current suggestions for demands:

reverse the recent image viewer update

scrap the new users 'for you' page default setting

let us turn off tumblr live indefinitely ( -> here's a response from 2 staff members about it)

increase efforts against spam / porn bots

make reporting abuse and hate speech as easy as reporting as reporting spam

let us go nuts show nuts again… for real this time ( -> there are app store/USA law issues with this one, so it's not entirely in tumblr's hands)

remove flashing ads, including not accepting blaze campaigns for posts with flashing in them

commit to improving usability and accessibility, and listening to users!

more transparency on staff working on issues raised by users ( -> staff does have a github but seems to be more dev focused than user issues focused)

other posts:

a few notes on the protest

some issues users have

delete the app on the 30th!

on volunteer work & what goes into running tumblr... and why our demands might not work

the strike should be kept at 48 hours... this time. (and a suggestion for mastodon in the meantime)

response from staff members (cyle, kat & zingring)

boycott tumblr products (and why the indefinite blackout suggestion had nothing to do with disability month; though it was an oversight on my behalf)

some criticisms... and some suggestions

the current goals

on demands, communicating with staff, and suggestions for communicating with participants

complaining to staff hasn't worked (so far)

leave negative reviews on the app store

initial suggestion to make it indefinite

let's use this post as a place to discuss how the blackout should work, how long it will go for, our demands, how to communicate best with staff, and what happens if it doesn't work.

a response from zingring (staff, COO) said:

"We actually are talking very recently (since yesterday) about instituting a public bug tracker, and it could be GitHub. We are also talking about publishing a community wishlist."

so it's already working!

(number of times staff has rejected a blaze campaign for the original post: 5)

#dogpost #no bold #tumblr protest #tumblr blackout #tumblr strike #thats 5 separate people trying to blaze it btw lol

[faytelumos]

It's ableist to log off? To not interact with a product for a short period? Who exactly is morally required to keep using Product?

It isn't that not interacting with this product is ableist. It's that not interacting with this product specifically starting on Disability Pride Month and for an indefinite amount of time (as the one who proposed the blackout later asked) prevents the spread of disabled voices.

If it was only the two days, that wouldn't be harmful. But the person who started the motion wanted the logoff to be indefinite, so it would naturally take many people away from disabled content while it's being shared the most.

#can I ax you something? #Tumblr blackout

[impunkster-syndrome]

Also fucking wild the organizer of it has been told of furiousgoldfish's eugenics stuff before and basically responded with "Eh but they have some good trauma stuff" on the hauntedselves blog. Yeah, I don't fucking trust a movement that will cut off disabled people's communication with each other from someone who can excuse a eugenicist TERF by just ignoring that content from them as if believing a specific type of trauma symptoms is deserving of forced sterilization is not going to poison all of furiousgoldfish's takes on trauma because of the belief of there being "acceptable" symptoms of trauma that make people inherently good or "unacceptable" ones that make people inherently evil.

#tumblr blackout #disability #personality disorder

[raineiscooler]

Me: It's gonna be disability month soon! YES! One of my favorite months, and it happens right after pride Month! Two months to be me on here-

Tumblr users: Actually we're doing a Tumblr blackout when disability month starts.

Me, dejected: ....oh

#tumblr blackout #disability month #actually autistic #actually chronically ill #disabled pride #pride month

[liminalweirdo]

Doing tumblr blackout (which still doesn't appear to have an effective communication plan) during disability pride month - the ONLY month disabled voices are actually heard and spread; during an ongoing pandemic that has resulted not only in the rest of the world leaving us behind, but is also actively killing us in droves - seems... ableist.

Mainly because of these reasons, I will not be participating in the blackout and will be focussing on elevating disabled voices and their art etc. instead

#ableism #tumblr blackout #disability pride #disability justice #not wearing a mask is eugenics by the way #disability pride month