Yay Tumblr, no more self-harm blogs!
I know it's been ages since I posted. Things have been crazy busy and I've now got a shocking throat and ear infection as my punishment for not looking after myself. I had to post this because I was just SO THRILLED!!!
Tumblr, a sort of personal blogging service, a cross between Pinterest and Twitter, have proposed a new content policy.
Tumblr is kind of famous for heaps of self-harm, pro ana and pro mia sites. People set them up anonymously and they can be very hard to avoid.
Tumblr is now proposing to change their policy to either prohibit them all together or to have a public service announcement that directs readers to helplines. I hope they go with either option, but do SOMETHING!
Below is their full statement. It's had 22,205 likes.
Just quietly? I THINK THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME!!!!!!!
All we need is for services like Pinterest to grow a spine and do the same.
Read on....
Feb 23rd, 2012
One of the great things about Tumblr is that people use it for just about every conceivable kind of expression. People being people, though, that means that Tumblr sometimes gets used for things that are just wrong. We are deeply committed to supporting and defending our users’ freedom of speech, but we do draw some limits. As a company, we’ve decided that some specific kinds of content aren’t welcome on Tumblr. For example, we prohibit spam and identity theft.
Our Content Policy has not, until now, prohibited blogs that actively promote self-harm. These typically take the form of blogs that glorify or promote anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders; self-mutilation; or suicide. These are messages and points of view that we strongly oppose, and don’t want to be hosting. The question for us has been whether it’s better to (a)prohibit them, as a statement against the very ideas of self-harm that they are advancing, or (b) permit them to stay up, accompanied by a public service warning that directs readers to helplines run by organizations like the National Eating Disorders Association.
We are planning to post a new, revised Content Policy in the very near future, and we’d like to ask for input from the Tumblr community on this issue.
Here’s what we think the right answer is:
1. Implement a new policy against pro-self-harm blogs.Here’s draft language we are planning to add to our Content Policy:
Active Promotion of Self-Harm. Don’t post content that actively promotes or glorifies self-injury or self-harm. This includes content that urges or encourages readers to cut or mutilate themselves; embrace anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorders; or commit suicide rather than, e.g., seek counseling or treatment for depression or other disorders. Online dialogue about these acts and conditions is incredibly important; this prohibition is intended to reach only those blogs that cross the line into active promotion or glorification. For example, joking that you need to starve yourself after Thanksgiving or that you wanted to kill yourself after a humiliating date is fine, but recommending techniques for self-starvation or self-mutilation is not.
We aim to begin implementing this policy next week. Of course, we will allow any affected blogs a grace period in which to edit or download your content.
2. Start showing PSAs on search results for related keywords.In addition, we plan to start posting “public service announcement”-style language whenever users search for tags that typically go along with pro-self-harm blogs. For example, when a user searches for tags like “anorexia”, “anorexic”, “bulimia”, “bulimic”, “thinspiration”, “thinspo”, “proana”, “purge”, “purging”, etc., we would show PSA language like:
Eating disorders can cause serious health problems, and at their most severe can even be life-threatening. Please contact the [resource organization] at [helpline number] or [website].
So that’s our plan. We’d like your feedback. If you have any comments or suggestions, please email them to policy@tumblr.com.
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Reader Comments (1)
yesssss! Finallyyyyy! I am so glad this is finally happening. Maybe this will encourage other websites to begin thinking about doing the same thing. I just hate that so many people are misunderstanding the new policy. I've read tons of comments by people that use their tumblrs for support and are now assuming that they will be shut down. Tumblr isn't shutting down the support forums, it's shutting down the PRO-self harm ones.